A Weekend at Belmont
by Miss Baby
Summary: No matter what Carlisle's invitation had said, our weekend at Belmont would become anything but relaxing. What we never could have predicted, though, was that in the midst of broken hearts and old resentments getting a new, unwelcome breath, there was also a killer walking among us. And everyone was a suspect...even me.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Nobody is safe. Time will tell who will get out alive. No guarantees will be given beforehand.**_

* * *

 _ **Broadway, New York, 1941.**_

"Newton!" The name echoed through the bowels of Henderson's Theatre; one of the grandest and most renowned theaters on Broadway. Carlisle was pissed, and he was right to be. With only a few minutes on the clock before curtain call, one of his stars was missing.

Bella sighed, shooting a tense smile at her dresser. "At least he is finally here," she whispered, the nerves that had been out in full force diminishing slightly though her reluctance to leave her dressing room was still very much present.

Through a crack in the door, she could see Michael flashing by; a look of pure loathing on his face—although she wasn't sure whether it was directed at himself or at the tormentors that had pulled yet another disgusting prank on him.

She'd worried about him all afternoon.

Like her, he had always been out of place in the theatre. He had talent, that was for sure—they all did—but just like her, his character wasn't up to dealing with the jealous scheming and general lack of any kind of morals that seemed to dictate the acting world.

And just like her, his heart had been crushed and his soul broken by the people she'd once longed to call her friends.

One, even more so.

Her heart throbbed painfully, the she'd put in place to hold it together, straining to do their job as the awful memories of the previous night started to flood her mind again.

She sighed, trying to rid her head of the image of a man and a woman, locked in an intimate embrace. It was her eyes, Alice's cold, ice-blue triumphant stare that had been the straw that broke the camel's back. There was no doubt that Alice had set out to hurt Bella…the woman she saw as her competition. And in doing so, she'd used the man she had trapped in her web as a way to further her own advancement.

Bella wanted nothing more of it; the whole world she'd reluctantly been thrown into and all the people in it. She wanted to get as fast and as far away from all of them as possible.

By accepting her spot on the playlist, she had fulfilled her promise to her father; she had paid her pound of flesh. After that night, she would be free and at liberty to go back home. A home, where she felt safe and loved.

"Newton, get back here, damn you!" In all the years she'd known him, Bella had never seen Carlisle Cullen as angry as when he stormed passed her dressing room, his voice thundering through the backstage area as he yelled, "Where the hell have you been? Curtain's going up in fifteen minutes and you're not even dressed!"

Like Bella, a few other members of the crew were drawn out of their dressing rooms and office, watching with rapt fascination as the scene unfolded in front of them. As used to emotions flying high as most of the crew were (after all, when dealing with a bunch of high strung actors on a daily basis, tantrums were bound to happen), explosions like the one detonating right there and then were slightly more rare.

"Get off my back, Carlisle!" Newton roared, rounding on the one person he should have treated with respect as Carlisle Cullen, a renowned and very powerful stage director, held the keys to his future as an actor. "Thank God tonight's the last night I have to listen to your bullshit, because I'm so damn through with this place and every single person in it it's not even funny anymore!"

His rage, caused by the umpteenth mean prank that had been played on him that night by his fellow cast mates, had made Michael courageous. Unfortunately for him, however, his muscles had not grown at the same rate.

"Shut up before I smash your face into a wall and ruin tonight's performance!" Carlisle roared, his much stronger arms slamming the young actor against the wall. "You will listen to me now, you ungrateful idiot: you will head over to your dressing room, get your ass together and on that stage. Or I'm telling you…" His threat made young Newton tremble as all his former courage deflated from his frame. "If the audience so much as picks up on something strange, you will never work in this city again."

"Like I want another job in this hell hole anyway!" Newton chuckled bitterly as he dusted himself off and obediently went as he was directed.

Looking back on that night, Bella would forever regret the fact that she hadn't reached out to him then. With only fifteen minutes before curtain went up, she had justified her own reluctance to act by telling herself she had to focus on getting in character and preparing herself for her final night.

But even as she crept through the hallways of the theatre, she already knew it had been a lie.

"Watch it!" An angry sneer and a jab to her ribcage were all Bella saw as Alice Brandon flew by on her way to the stage; unkind and unapologetic.

Bella had gotten used to it over the weeks.

They had all set out on an equal footing; a bright young cast, hired to bring youthful enthusiasm and a whole new shine to Carlisle Cullen's production of The Merchant of Venice. They were all equally inexperienced and eager to proof that they were worthy of their spot in the production. Thrown into the spotlight, the tentative friendships that had blossomed between the young actors were soon put to the test as jealousy and rivalry flared up as everyone tried to capture their spot in the limelight. Some went about it in more extreme ways than others, though. Where Bella had tried to be nice and work hard, Alice had stopped at nothing to secure her place in the spotlights. Some even said she'd bedded the director himself to get the part of Portia. After what Bella had seen the previous night, she was more inclined than ever to believe the gossip.

"Bella-" Bella rushed past the actor, dressed up to the nines in all of Bassanio's Belmont-bound finery as she got ready to play her part. "Please," he called out after her. "We need to talk about this. It wasn't…what you saw, it wasn't-"

"I have nothing more to say to you, Edward," Bella bit back, trying to fight her tears. She would not let him see how broken her spirit was by his callous behavior. "It seems to me as if you've made your choice."

The lights shone too bright as she stepped into them; her skin perspiring under their warmth as she slipped into Nerissa's skin just as she had done for so many nights, forgetting the hurtful characters that skulked behind the faces of the parts they acted out on stage. Even forgetting that in real life Shylock was her father as she helped Portia to put him in his place.

It was only after the final curtain call and the roar of the jubilant audience had died down, that she came back to her senses.

And with it, came the guilt over turning a blind eye to the abuse Mike had suffered at the hands of their fellow actors.

"You did very well tonight," her father spoke, his costume already gone as he brushed his make-up away with a wet towel. "If only you'd change your mind about your silly, childish homesickness, I'd be sure to get you a bigger part next time. You're at least as big a star as that Brandon girl is."

"I want to go home, Father," Bella spoke, her voice trembling at even the idea of dwelling in New York for longer than absolutely possible. "I want peace…a husband and some children, the steadiness of my own home. I don't belong here."

"Very well, then." Charlie Swan had already lost his interest. As a famous thespian, he too had lost much of his softness along the way. "If you want to go back to your mother and the obscurity that comes with country life, then so be it. But don't blame me when you grow tired of it."

"Don't worry," Bella muttered to the empty spot where her father had just stood. She was most certain that she would never regret the decision she'd made.

On the contrary.

She was counting the hours.

Quickly shoving all of her things into a bag, she walked down the corridor, closing her eyes and ears against the argument that went on to her right, as Emmett—one of the very men who'd damage she was on her way to erase—once again tried to pressure a very reluctant Rosalie into marriage. She hoped Rose would stand firm because as much as she disliked the haughty, naïve woman, she would never wish a scoundrel like Emmett onto any female.

"Mike?" She called out as her knuckled rapped against the closed dressing room door. "Are you in there?" As she knocked a little firmer, the door creaked open against her force, revealing a dark room awash with a heady, ominous smell.

"Mike?" Her voice sounded thin as she walked in, her hands trembling as it felt for the light switch.

When she finally found it, she wished to God that she hadn't because, as the light illuminated the room, her eyes took in a scene so horrid no matter of time would ever erase it from her mind.

There, with a glass of red wine still in his hand, lay the body of the obviously deceased Michael Newton. His eyes wide open and his mouth twisted into a sinister grimace as he looked up at the words he'd inscribed into his dressing mirror with red lipstick.

It was a final two-fingered salute to those who had either tormented him or failed to stand up to those that did.

Bella was the only one to see it, apart from the person who had erased the message. For when she came too from the shock of her horrible discovery, it was as if they had never been there. It was ingrained into her soul, however, where it would remain until the day she died.

In the days following, the police interviewed each and every person present that night and, though many shared the agitation they had seen in Mike as he rushed into his dressing room at the eleventh hour, they remained mum about his reasons for doing so. Each and every person having his or her own reasons for their deceit. As there were no living relatives or other loved ones to plead his case, the police soon closed what appeared to be an obvious case of suicide.

But as slowly and certainly every trace of Michael Newton's earthly existence was erased; the parting words that were seen only by two—but repeated by many through the years—resounded like a warning that was heeded by none.

 _If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?_ _Everyone will get what they deserve. May my ghost haunt you all, long after the memory of who I used to be has faded._

 _See you in hell, you miserable bunch of lowlifes!_

 _I will be waiting._

Little did the cast of _The Merchant of Venice_ know, that Michael's parting words held a sinister truth in them.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Rosslyn Harbor, Maine**_

 _ **Friday, March 16, 1951**_

 _ **4 PM**_

If there was anything the men and women gathered on the dock shared, it was their dislike for each other. That, and their reluctance to comply with the wishes of an old man. Each and every single one of them had at one point been on the brink of excusing themselves with some bogus prior engagement but yet, the lingering gratitude they all felt towards the once famed Broadway director had held them back.

In the end, their curiosity had sealed their fate.

After all, how often does one get an invitation to spend a weekend on a remote island with a man who had been missing from the public eye for more than five years?

"What do you think he wants?" Emmett stretched his back, his head motioning towards the grand, mock French renaissance castle that sat on an island barely visible from the shore. He and his wife had been the first ones to arrive, soon joined by Jasper Whitlock—the only one out of the whole cast who'd never left New York and Broadway.

Jasper shrugged, "I don't know, man, but we're bound to find out." And with that, he turned away, already sick of the smug bastard standing next to him. Instead, his eyes were drawn to the smart looking Lincoln Continental which had just pulled up to the head of the dock.

He whistled, chuckling as the most unlikely figure ever elegantly slid out of the back seat. "Somebody's obviously done quite well for herself!"

The woman stepping from the car had never been more nervous in her life. Not even on her wedding day, or that night more than ten years ago when she had made her stage debut, had she ever felt her body tremble the way it did that moment.

"That will be all, Crowley," she spoke, her voice as shaky as the rest of her but still kind as she shared a smile with her chauffeur.

"Very well, ma'am," the driver answered with a friendly nod of his head. "I will be waiting for you at four o'clock sharp on Sunday afternoon. Should you need me before, I will only be a phone call away."

Bella smiled, grateful for all his good cares. "Thank you, Crowley. You have no idea how much that thought consoles me." Unlike her mother in law, Bella had never learned to take the efforts of her staff for granted. After all, she keenly remembered what her life had been like when she had to take care of herself. "Wish me luck!"

"You won't need it, Mrs. Black." Bella wished she had Crowley's certainty as she took a deep breath and tried to remember that she was a long ways away from the shy, simple girl from ten years ago. A fortunate marriage to one of the richest men in the country, motherhood, and finally widowhood had left her independently rich and with a much stronger character than the frightened girl who had fled New York with her tail between her legs.

"I thought you were Alice." Rosalie's voice sounded as welcome as nails against a chalkboard as the once beautiful actress appeared beside her. "I forgot you landed yourself a rich one."

Time had not been as kind to Rosalie McCarty. An unhappy marriage and the disappointments that had followed it had driven her to indulge in rich foods and fine wines. And it showed; her once praised curves had expanded to beyond what could be called _Rubensian_ , and her face reflected the bitterness that had taken hold of her spirit.

"I see you finally gave Emmett what he wanted," Bella remarked, meeting Rose's ill-concealed jab with one of her own as a flashy red car sped towards them. That would be Alice.

Rose huffed. "Between my father and him, the deal was as good as done by the time the final curtain closed. Who was I to go against them, huh? It's not like my happiness was important to anyone."

Bella smiled sympathetically. "You could have always…"

"And give him the pleasure of being able to do whatever the hell he wants?" Rose chuckled bitterly. "No, I'm in this until death do us part. Even if it's just to spite him!"

To Bella, this concept seemed so foreign she could barely fathom it. True, she too had married not for love but for convenience, but in her marriage there had at least been mutual respect and affection. She even thought that if it had lasted for more than the few years before her husband had bravely volunteered himself for battle, she might have grown to love him.

"My God!" Rose meanwhile chuckled beside her. "It seems she wants to move in permanently! Look at all those suitcases!"

Where the rest of them had brought a modest bag or small suitcase suitable to fit the necessities one needed for only two nights away from home, Alice Brandon seemed to have packed her entire wardrobe judging from the six enormous trunks that littered the dock. Some poor woman who looked to be her maid was having a hell of a job getting them all arranged in a way that wouldn't damage the expensive looking leather exterior as her boss barked all kinds of orders at her. The woman herself was standing there with an air of superiority and a mink coat that looked far too warm for the time of year as she surveyed her surroundings.

With her success, the arrogance and inhumane unfeelingness that had always marked Alice Brandon's character had only grown. Now that she had made a successful transition from stage to screen—and was a big name in Hollywood—she had seemed to adopt the idea that the world somehow evolved around her. And how could she not, when there was nobody around to tell her otherwise?

In fact, out of the cast that had shot to fame during the production of _The Merchant of Venice_ , only one other actor could rival her success. And he was trying very hard to blend in with the scenery as he stood back, his eyes never leaving Bella's small frame.

To him, she would always be the one who got away.

That was why he, unlike the others, had jumped at the chance Carlisle Cullen's invitation had offered. As little as he looked forward to seeing everybody else, the chance to undo the biggest mistake he'd ever made in his life was one he wasn't going to let slip through his fingers.

Not for all the conceited, self-involved actors in the world.

Looking at her, his imagination truly hadn't done her justice. Over the years, Bella Swan—now Black—had blossomed from the frightened little girl into a woman who carried herself with a sort of quiet confidence. Out of the three women gathered there that day, she was the last one a man would take notice of. But when he did, his eyes would no longer linger on the artificial, hard beauty of Alice Brandon or the pudgy faded glory of Rosalie McCarty. They would only see the understated elegance and friendly openness of Bella Black's classically beautiful face.

As his did.

Finally, a man in a pickup truck appeared, unloading boxes full of supplies into a boat as he announced to the assembled guests that he wouldn't be the one who would carry them across to the island. A fight broke out between Alice and the boatman, who refused point-black to both load and ferry all her luggage, Edward finally found the courage to approach the object of his affections.

"It's funny how some things never change, isn't it?" he wondered, shielding his cigarette as he struck a match to light it.

Bella smiled tightly, refusing his offer of a smile. "I find it hard to use the word 'funny' in relation to that woman. In fact, this whole trip isn't something I would describe as _fun_."

"Do you miss your son?" Edward asked, as both their eyes watched another classic Alice-explosion unfurl as the boatman tried to make her see how food and other necessities were more important than her expensive wardrobe and luggage had been restricted to one piece a person. As had been stipulated in their invitation.

"Yes," Bella replied shortly.

Over the years, he'd tried to keep up to date with the world of Bella Swan, though it hadn't been easy since she seemed to prefer a life of relative obscurity. All he knew was that not even a year after she'd left New York, she'd married some older guy who was some friend of the family and had his son a year later. He was all she had (besides a boatload of money) as her husband, like so many, had died during the war, leaving her a very wealthy widow and the sole caretaker of their son. "I'm sure you could have brought him with you, if you wanted to," Edward offered.

"And have him exposed to all of you?" Bella huffed angrily. "I'd rather hire Joseph Stalin to be his nanny for the weekend. I doubt he could do as much damage!"

Edward sighed as he realized his plan to win back the woman of his dreams wasn't going to be as easy as he'd hoped. "Then why are you here?"

"Why are we all here?" Bella let out a long breath as, finally, Alice and the boatman seemed to have come to some sort of agreement. "Curiosity," she answered her own question. "Besides, I've been trying to learn more about my dad lately so I wondered what Carlisle can tell me about him."

"I bet he can fill in a gap or two," Edward offered as he grabbed both their suitcases as started walking towards the ramp with her. "They worked together a lot over the years. I think Charlie even played in those final two productions of Carlisle's. You know, when the old man really started to lose the plot."

Carlisle Cullen had always been an eccentric man; given his chosen field, it was hardly something that had set him apart from other stage directors. Many times, like in 'their' production of _The Merchant of Venice_ , his eccentricity had driven him to genius new finds that breathed new light into old, overdone plays. His final years, however, had been marked by one disaster after the next.

"Jacob and I actually went to see Romeo and Juliet before it closed," Bella offered as she carefully walked the gangplank. "I think it was the second of the three performances they did before it closed." She shuddered, thinking about one of the most awkward nights of her life. The actors, already aware of the fact that they had committed themselves to something horrible, had shown little conviction in their performance whereas the audience, disgusted by the many liberties the director had taken with one of Shakespeare's most beloved classics, as well as the sometimes downright vulgar staging, had booed them enthusiastically. "It was every bit as bad as the papers made it appear."

"Is that why your father enlisted?" Edward guessed, as they watched the boatman prepare for departure. He knew that a man of Charlie's age and standing would have easily been able to escape the war if he'd wanted to. "To get away from the disaster?"

Bella nodded. "That's what I think anyway." And with that, she angled herself away from him as she slowly but carefully wandered across the deck while the boat started moving towards their final destination.

Every single part of her was screaming to jump over the railing and run away while she still could but as her hands gripped the metal so tightly it was starting to hurt, she managed to curb her instinct and direct her attention towards the vague image of the island on the horizon.

Belmont Island.

It was the last place on earth she wanted to go to.

It was also, ironically enough, exactly where she was headed.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Friday, March 16, 1951**_

 _ **5 PM**_

"…and then, of course, the studios practically started fighting to sign me on!" Alice was holding court on one side of the boat, regaling her audience with _all_ the tales of her success, rarely stopping to take a breath. "I know that if I held out a little longer, I might have been able to get more money at Paramount but my heart told me to go for MGM."

"You're with Fox, aren't you, Edward?" Jasper asked, inconspicuously rolling his eyes at the inescapable bragging of the girl he'd once admired. If only her soul had matched her pretty exterior things between them might have taken a different turn, as he had been quite smitten with her when he'd first set eyes upon her delicate features. It didn't take him long, though, to find out that instead of a purity to match her pale skin tone, the blackness of her hair came closer to describing the true character of Alice Brandon.

And he wanted nothing to do with her.

Edward nodded. "My contract's up for negotiation, though."

"You should come over to MGM!" Alice squealed as the plans started to take shape in her head almost visibly. "They could do so many great things for you, what with you being this big war hero and all. And with us at a studio together, we could create a narrative that would have the press salivating over us! I can just see it now…," her eyes took on a dreamy look at the thought of another possible media frenzy that could bring her more fame and money, "…the spark re-ignited: former sweethearts back together again."

"No, thank you," Edward rebuffed her wryly. "Not everyone hungers for the spotlight like you do. I actually have every intention of negotiating an increase in my privacy or I might even quit Hollywood altogether."

"What on earth for?" Alice seemed to be so puzzled by Edward's statement that, for a moment, she forgot to put attention on herself. "Don't you want to make money? Be famous? Have everyone in the world want to _be_ you—or be _with_ you?" Her fake saccharin smile shone brightly.

"No." Edward shrugged. "Unlike some, I'm not in this to make money, though it's a nice side-effect of my chosen career, I must say. I like acting; making movies that excite me and challenge my capabilities. The rest of it is just a nuisance, and it's starting to grow more annoying by the year."

"Hmm." Alice still seemed puzzled but, as a whole five minutes had gone by without her stealing the limelight, she refocused on herself and the less-challenging audience of Emmett McCarty who had managed to escape the clutches of his wife. "What about you, Emmett? I could see you as the _manly_ hero to my damsel in distress."

"God, I'd love to!" He groaned, his eyes full of resentment as they glanced along to railing to where Rose stood, watching out across the waves by herself. "But Rose doesn't want to leave Rochester. You know…with the grave being there and all?"

"You're the man of the house. If you tell her to go, she is under an obligation to follow you." She paused. "Or you could always divorce her…" Alice cocked her head, narrowing her eyes as the makings of another plan started to hatch in her mind. True, Emmett lacked the hero-status that Edward, or even Jasper, brought to the table but he was definitely more docile and less smart than the other two gentlemen. If only she could save him from the clutches of his wife—which, considering the way Rose had let herself go, wasn't going to take a lot of effort, Alice presumed—she could mold him into just the kind of arm candy that would show her off to her advantage. After all, he was likeable and easygoing, and she knew herself well enough to know that those were character traits that she lacked.

"You know…" Emmett mused, leaning against the railing as he considered her offer. The thought of escaping the dreary life that had killed all of his ambitious plans was incredibly appealing even when he, like his wife, was very reluctant to be the first to throw in the towel on their marriage. Still…"You just might be right about that. I'm dying there, in Rochester."

"Then be a man!" Alice winked, already slightly bored with the easy success her scheme seemed to have as she walked on along the deck, her small hands holding on tight as the boat rumbled up towards the dock of Belmont Island, a small, private island miles off the coast of Maine.

Alice had been the last one to RSVP for the little island escape Carlisle had planned for them. Like Bella, there were about a million other places in the world she'd rather be at that moment than trying to keep her balance on a narrow gangplank as she first set foot on Carlisle's domain. Unlike Hollywood, this place held only very few chances for her own advancement, which was all Alice cared about. And with the old director well and truly sidetracked after his final train wreck of a play and virtually all of the other actors having careers that ranked decidedly below hers, the weekend was looking like a complete and utter bust already.

Unfortunately for her, Carlisle had some tricks up his sleeve, one of which being the considerable influence he wielded over his friends in the industry. And with the things he could tell them about her, Alice had deemed it more prudent to come, be bored, and stick out the forty-eight hours on Carlisle's godforsaken little spit of land than to reject his invitation.

"Damned gardener thinks he's a ladies man!" the boatman grumbled as he hoisted their bags on land.

"What?" Edward asked, his arm offered in support as Bella navigated the narrow wooden plank.

"Nothing!" the sourly looking seaman replied. "It's just that the gardener-slash-handyman Cullen employs ran off to the mainland to chase the ladies and left me to do all the work." The man huffed, loading as many pieces of luggage under his arms as he followed the group to the house. "Not only did that bastard…pardon my French, ladies. Not only did he up and leave, but he took the dinghy with him! He'd better get back tonight before Sam—the butler, that is—misses him or he'll really lose his job this time. He might be a young kid, that one, but after the warning they gave him last time…"

Bella sighed, thinking about the little boy she'd left behind at home. He'd been her life, ever since he'd come into the world, screaming at the top of his lungs. Leaving him had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. At least she comforted herself that he was safe and loved in the care of his aunt. But even after only a few short hours apart, her heart already throbbed painfully with the knowledge that later that night, for the first time in his young life, she wouldn't be there to tuck him into his bed.

Looking up at the imposing, mock-medieval castle, her heart sunk even further into her shoes. The high façade of dark grey stone was imposing enough to cast its shade over her; its chilling cold shadows left her with goosebumps on her arms and a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

"Bella!" Looking up, she saw rest of the group had already gathered around a frail looking old man who, on further inspection turned out to be Carlisle Cullen. "I'm so glad you could make it." Bella noticed he needed the full support of the nurse who seemed to be glued to his side as he walked out towards her with outstretched arms. His embrace felt like a hug from a broom and a bunch of twigs as he whispered in her ear, "I'm so sad that your father couldn't be here with us. He would have been so proud to see the woman you are today."

Bella had her own ideas about that but, whether out of common decency, or because the shock of seeing the once so vibrant director brought down to this ghost of a man, she kept them to herself. "Thanks for inviting me, Carlisle. I've never been to Maine."

"And here you are now!" Somehow Carlisle managed to smile as he waved his arm around his domain. "If you really want to get away from the world, this is the place to be." He smiled as his eyes traveled the rocky coastline, his slight frame wobbling as he stepped back from their embrace. "There's nobody who can hassle you here, unless they go through the trouble of hiring a boat and coming all the way out here."

"So there's no chance of a quick swim to the shore, huh?" Emmett joked, his face showing his concern as he gently put his arm under one of Carlisle's elbows while the nurse took his other arm. He, too, had been shocked to find their former boss so changed.

"Not unless you want to drown," Carlisle was quick to warn him. "It's almost ten miles to the mainland and two to the nearest island. Besides the distance, the currents alone are strong enough to pull you out to sea before you're even a few feet in the water."

Bella shook her head. Knowing what she knew about Emmett and his boisterous nature, it would be just like him to overindulge in after dinner brandy and decide he could take a midnight swim to the shore. It was a good thing Carlisle had forewarned him.

"I gave you one of the finest rooms in the house," Carlisle, catching up with her again, spoke. His voice was breathless with the exertion of having to keep up with his guests, but he seemed determined to fulfill his duties as their host even if it killed him. "It looks out across the mighty expanse of the Atlantic and-"

"I should have it," Alice sneered. "After all, who would _she_ be if she hadn't married a rich husband? It's not fair that she gets the best room in the house when _I_ made my fame and fortune by working hard."

"Alice!" Jasper warned, clearly already fed up with the Hollywood star. "Would it kill you to act like a decent human being for forty-eight hours? Look at this place! I'm sure the room they put you in isn't exactly a dump."

"It's okay," Bella conceded, knowing from experience that it was easier to give Alice exactly what she wanted. "We can swap…if Carlisle's okay with it."

Carlisle looked slightly saddened but nodded as Alice stalked forward towards the main entrance with a smile as if she'd won a war.

The castle itself was as magnificent on the inside as its neo-Gothic splendor on the outside had suggested. After she'd made sure Carlisle was settled in one of the grand parlors, Esme, his nurse, took them on a tour through while their luggage was brought up to their rooms.

When finally, after sufficiently oohing and awing over the décor, Bella found herself in her own room, with the door closed on her former cast mates and all of their unpleasantness, she was finally able to take stock of her feelings.

Meeting everyone again after ten years had been quite an experience, but to say that it was a pleasant one… No, that would not have been how Bella would describe her weekend trip so far.

Of three things, though, she was completely certain.

One: something was wrong with Carlisle…something bad...something dreadfully serious.

Two: Edward Masen was up to something with all his smiles and obliging behavior. And while she wasn't sure what it was, she regretfully had to conclude that even after ten years, his presence didn't leave her quite unbothered.

And finally: making it through the weekend without killing Alice Brandon was going to be a task worthy of a Congressional Medal of Honor.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Friday, March 16, 1951**_

 _ **7 PM**_

"Thank you, good man!" Edward groaned, slamming the martini back that the stiff-looking butler had handed to him in one big gulp; his hand already reaching out for the next. If he was going to make it through the night—heck, the entire weekend—he was going to need copious amounts of liquor.

If the butler thought anything about his behavior, he didn't let it show. If some of the people gathered in the elegant room would have known his thoughts, though, they would have been outraged.

A true English gentleman, Sam Uley had received his training in one of those old, English country houses that belonged to a family both noble in rank and in behavior. In their house, he'd risen from valet to the highest rank in the household. Unfortunately, like in so many families of that age, money had ran out and when the family had been forced to sell their assets, they had to let go of most of their staff as well. For Sam, a difficult couple of years had dawned as most rich families were looking to downsize their staff and many others like him were looking for employment.

In the end, a desperate move had brought him to the US where a chance meeting in New York had put him in the path of the eccentric director in whose household staff he'd joined almost eight years earlier. He hated it; the country, its people, his employer…not even the weather could meet his approval. It was a world of difference from the order and hierarchy he'd known and loved in his home country.

The people gathered under his employer's roof that weekend were amongst the lowest of all lifeforms he'd met so far. Not exactly a stranger to passive-aggressiveness or unfriendly rivalry, he was just used to seeing it done with class and decency, and not with the brazen forwardness that characterized some of the upstart lowlifes he was meant to serve that weekend.

He sighed as he replenished his stock, already thinking about the tales he was going to tell Mrs. Cope, the cook, and the only one in the entire castle who understood his predicament. The small, raven haired little trollop had already made for some tragic tales of what human civilization had been brought down to.

Meanwhile, blissfully unaware of the scathing opinion the butler had of them, the men had gathered in anticipation of the arrival of the women. They sat around sipping their drinks as they exchanged the same common remarks on the lateness of women that could be heard in formal living rooms around the country.

"You didn't waste any time cozying up to the darling Mrs. Black, now did you, Masen?" Emmett remarked, his eagle eyes taking in the damage his little sting had managed to do.

"I'm only trying to make up for past mistakes," Edward replied honestly, the sting not as painful as the memory of Bella's stricken look as she caught him with Alice. "Whether or not she'll let me is a whole different tale."

"She's grown into a fine woman, that one," Jasper drawled, staring out across the darkening ocean view. "Not to mention a rich one."

"I don't give a shit about her money," Edward snapped, "and if you so much as think about putting a move on her, I'll kill you in your sleep!"

Jasper chuckled. "I'd love to see you try, kid. You're not the only decorated veteran under this roof."

"Gentlemen!" Carlisle soothed, looking unsteady on his feet as he joined his male guests. "Please, calm yourself! Bella looks like she's woman enough to decide her own fate without you two sniffing around her skirts like a pack of dogs. Leave the poor woman alone!"

Edward huffed, taking his drink to a quiet corner to sulk alone as the other men quickly changed the subject to less dangerous matters as slowly but surely the women started to arrive.

Rose was the first one to enter; her hair done up to the best standard she could reach while her dress looked more like it had been tailored to fit her former self. The fabric stretched a little too tightly around her bust and strained against it seems at her waist as it clung to her voluptuous form for dear life. Dressed up like she was, though, she was still a very beautiful woman, though the self-assuredness with which she carried her beauty ten years earlier had long since vanished.

She was soon followed by an agitated looking Esme whose presence came as a bit of a surprise to most of the people gathered in the room. Though as Carlisle was quick to explain that since arriving at Belmont as his nurse, the beautiful woman had risen to much greater heights than that, and they were quick to include her into their circle. If only because she offered a fresh face and a new addition to their schemes.

Bella thought she had arrived late—her reluctance to mingle with people she didn't particularly like caused her to pay more attention to her appearance than she usually did. She shouldn't have been surprised, though, that when she came down, she was only the second to last person to arrive.

She still had time to finish one drink and ponder asking for a second round of Dutch courage before Alice arrived.

Looking like the cat that ate the canary, it was pretty clear that the Hollywood star fancied herself the queen bee as she walked into the room like she owned it. "Did I make you wait?" Giggling coquettishly she batted her lashes innocently. "I'm ever so sorry. I hope nobody fainted of hunger!"

Carlisle reached for Esme's hand as his companion appeared to be boiling with a rage that couldn't have been brought on by Alice's words alone. Squeezing it gently, he spoke, "I'm sure Mrs. Cope has factored in a little delay." Releasing Esme's hand, he linked arms with Alice and took a few uneasy steps before finding his stride. "Why don't we go in now and she if she is ready for us."

Esme's face looked ashen as she watched her lover walk away from her on the arm of a woman she visibly hated; her eyes dull as she watched Edward go out of his way to accompany Bella into the dining room while she accepted Jasper's steadying hold as they followed after the McCarty's. "Don't take it personally, ma'am," he assured her. "She destroys everything that comes in her path."

"Then why do people still put up with her?" Esme was unable to keep her bitterness out of her voice.

"For the same reason people are fascinated with lions, tigers and snakes: their power holds us spellbound as our minds become poisoned with the idea of being able to submit them. They pose the ultimate challenge."

Right then, the woman in question interrupted them, her eyes narrowing with spite. "What are you two talking about? And why isn't dear Jasper seated next to me? I have longed to finally get the chance to be closer to him since he has always seemed to be so scared of little ole me that I can barely say I know him!"

Jasper, deliberately picking out a chair as far away from her as possible, smiled. "Don't all ladies enjoy a little mystery?"

"We like to demystify it, if that's what you mean," Alice smiled coyly as her hand suggestively rubbed the stem of her empty wineglass. "After all, what is a good mystery if you cannot have the satisfaction of it unravelling under your fingertips?"

"Then I'm afraid to disappoint you, ma'am," Jasper concluded, raising his wineglass towards her as soon as the butler had filled it while the rest of the party watched on as if they were following a tennis match, "this gentleman doesn't enjoy being undone."

Alice pouted, her face hardening as she drew in a sharp breath. "Why not? Every other man in this room has found that it comes with an unimaginable set of benefits."

Bella paled, her shoulders tensing as she shook off the hand Edward held to the small of her back, her mind flooding with images she'd fought very hard to forget. " _Alice_ ," she warned as beside her a war of silence was wrought between the McCartys.

"You asshole!' Rose finally cried, making use of the freshly filled glass of fine wine as she threw its contents in her husband's face. "You trapped me in a marriage you knew I didn't want when all along you were screwing another woman behind my back?" She didn't wait for a reply before she threw back her seat and all but ran out of the room.

"Well," Alice seemed more pleased with herself than embarrassed as she spread her napkin across her lap. "That was awkward."

The rest of the company stared at her in amazement but, as Sam put the vacant chair back upright and helped Emmett dry his face as best as he could, they couldn't do anything but sit down and hope that they'd had the worst of it as the butler and a maid began to dish out their salads.

Carlisle sighed, looking even older and more burdened with the weight of life than the thin, worn down man that had greeted them hours before. "I'm sorry that just happened. I wished for nothing more than your first meal at Belmont to be a happy affair."

"It wasn't your fault," Bella soothed him, patting the top of his hand as she shot a menacing glare at Alice.

As the maid went around with a plate of warm bread rolls, Alice cried out when the poor girl accidentally knocked over the actress' glass, spilling the red wine over the pristine, white tablecloth as a few small droplets ended up on Alice's dress. Jumping up, everyone was horrified to see Alice smack the unfortunate girl across the cheek, her eyes wild with rage as she shrieked, "You ruined my dress, you idiot!"

"Alice, please sit down," Carlisle ordered as the poor serving girl handed a furious Alice a fresh napkin to wipe away the traces of her error, her hands shaking with fear though she stood her ground while her employer went on. "Your reaction was completely uncalled for. I'm sure Mrs. Cope will do everything she can to get the stains out and, if not, I will pay for the damage."

"She should be fired!" Alice barked as the poor girl rushed out of the room with tears in her eyes.

"For a simple mistake?" Carlisle shook his head. "I'm glad poor Jessica isn't in your employment as I'm sure she will have learned from this mistake and will remain in my service for as long as she would wish without making it again."

Bella smiled, taking a sip from her wine. "As it should be."

"And how would you know that?" Alice snapped. "You don't even employ a ladies maid! Where's your self-respect?"

"Perhaps in the same place your decency is hiding?" Bella countered, no longer afraid of the vile woman like she used to be. "But please…let's respect Carlisle's wish for a quiet, friendly dinner."

"Hear, hear!" Jasper saluted with Edward following his lead.

The girl didn't return, not even when a large terrine of soup was carried into the dining room by the butler who, with a long face, continued to dish it out singlehandedly before replacing the wineglass the servant had tipped over with a fresh one. Instead, Alice's maid seemed to have stepped into the void left behind by the poor, stricken girl. Of course, this was all much to the dismay of her employer but as the rest of the guests clearly seemed to be of the opinion that Angela's help was as needed as it was appreciated, she only threw a very mild tantrum about it.

"My friends," Carlisle broke the silence that had fallen as his guests were enjoying the excellent food prepared by Mrs. Cope. "I'm sure you're wondering why I made all of you come down here for this weekend, especially since I've been known to enjoy my solitude." He paused, his hand trembling slightly as he caught the smiles of some of his table companions. "I'm sure you will have noticed that I am no longer the man I was ten years ago. I'm dying and…"

He had expected the gasps of horror that were uttered around the table, even the tears that flowed from Bella's eyes as he held on to Esme's steadying embrace. What Carlisle, however, hadn't reckoned on was the cry that came from his right, though he was soon to find that its origins didn't lie in the shock his statement had brought on.

Alice Brandon looked as white as a sheet as her hand clasped her throat, the wine glass falling from her other as she tried desperately to fight off whatever ailed her.

"Alice?" Emmett called as Esme was quick to come to the aid of the very woman who had disgusted her with her behavior earlier.

It was all to no avail.

Alice's eyes widened, a series of horrific sounds emitting from her throat as her face fell forward into her salad plate and her lungs release their final breath.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Friday, March 16, 1951**_

 _ **9 PM**_

Nobody said a word during those first few, awful moments.

Everybody just sat there, transfixed on the grisly scene in front of them as their minds tried to catch up with what their eyes had just witnessed.

Esme was the first one to spring into action; her nurse's training kicked in as she rushed over to Alice to check for a pulse. Her sob as she withdrew her fingers was enough for everyone to know even before she confirmed it. "She has no pulse! Something must have gotten stuck in her windpipe! Jasper, help me move her!"

Jasper, the most hardened soldier out of the two men present who had seen action during the war, immediately sprang into action, gently, but swiftly lifting Alice's body out of her seat, a trail of mushroom soup, which she'd began eating after nibbling on her salad, followed in their wake as he placed her on the ground for Esme to start her efforts to resuscitate her.

"Put her on her stomach," Esme ordered as she pushed up the sleeves of her dress and started the Schafer Method of resuscitation. Bella had seen it done once in a government social guidance film and found the whole exercise rather ridiculous, but in reality, she watched with baited breath as Jasper and Esme tried to revive their patient. "Jasper, go and call the emergency services. There's a telephone out in the foyer near the front door."

"How..." Carlisle started, his already pale face whitening even further as he sucked in harsh, anguished breaths. Fearing he was going to topple over soon, Bella shot out her hand to steady him and help regain his composure before he went on, "She was just…"

"What can I do?" Emmett barked as he paced the room while Esme waved his offer away. She obviously knew what she was doing, even if it didn't seem to have any effect on Alice.

It was another horrible few minutes before she was ready to accept defeat. "I'm sorry," she muttered, her voice strained as she stepped off Alice's back. "I fear she has passed beyond our help."

"What?" Emmett cried. "She's _dead_?"

Esme nodded. "I'm afraid she is."

Bella clamped her hand over her mouth as she dashed out of the room to deposit what was in her stomach. On instinct—rather than a true knowledge of the castle's floorplan—she managed to reach a nearby bathroom just in time to revisit the drinks and canapés she'd enjoyed only a few moments before. Edward was by her side in a flash, making sure to keep the long necklace she wore around her neck from getting soiled as he slowly patted her back. "It's okay, Bella," he tried to soothe her.

"But it's not," Bella cried, her mascara running down her beautiful face along with her tears. "She just _died_ , Edward! She just fell over and died!"

Back in the dining room, things had finally kicked into high gear. As it became more and more clear that something awful had taken place, Esme was trying to do her best to keep the others from touching Alice or disturbing the scene, calling on what little she knew of a training she had received a long time ago. She knew that something was horribly amiss with the scene in front of her, though inwardly she tried to reason with that panicked voice yelling 'foul play' inside her mind.

"We can't just leave her lying like that!" Emmett cried, trying to push Esme out of the way as he watched in abject horror how little drops of soup continued to drip from Alice's hair. "Look at her! It's disgraceful! She looks like a rag doll that someone threw aside!"

Esme closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath as she stood her ground against the giant of a man. "Emmett, I completely agree with you but until we know what happened to her, the police are going to want to see the full picture. The minute we move her or clean her face, like I'm sure each and every one of us desperately wants to do, we could erase evidence that can help people find out what killed her."

"But she just choked on something, right?" Emmett's voice sounded remarkably thin as he looked up at the nurse. "I mean…what are the police going to do about it?"

"I think she choked, yes," Esme answered, though inwardly, a blinding fear was starting to grow, "but the police are going to want to make their own inquiries. Especially with Alice being a famed movie star."

By that time Rose, alerted by the commotion, had come back from her room with red-rimmed eyes. The shock on her face when she spotted the dead woman lying on the floor was so absolute that she fainted almost instantly, her head barely missed the sharp edge of the table as she fell to the floor.

Her husband merely groaned as he looked at it. "Now what?"

"Take her through to the sitting room," Carlisle ordered, finding his voice again after the shock had simply left him stupefied. "We all need to get out of this room before we lose our heads. Esme will know how to revive your wife."

Emmett let out an indiscernible groan as he lifted his wife's unconscious body away as the whole company gathered again in the room they had parted from when everything had still been alright.

Well, not alright…but better at least.

 _At least_ …everyone was still _living_ then.

By the time Esme had helped Carlisle's feeble body into a chair and was working on reviving poor Rosalie McCarty, Edward and Bella had rejoined the group just in time to watch a frantic Jasper storm back in. "The phone line's out!" he panted, holding onto the back of a chair. "I went all the way to the spot where the line goes into the water towards the mainland and pulled the end right out of the sea."

"What?" Edward veered up from his chair. "You mean…the line's dead?"

"It's all a bit too much of a coincidence, isn't it?" Jasper mused, frowning as he looked around the room. "The line going out at exactly the same time that Alice keels over dead in her soup?"

Bella gasped, her hand clutching her hammering heart. "Do you think..."

"Stop it right there before you frighten everyone to death!" Esme broke in, her voice commanding. "It _is_ unfortunate that it happened just now but if you lived on this Island, like I do, you'd know that it's a pretty common occurrence." She paused, stopping to catch a breath and to keep her agitation from seeping into her voice and alarming Carlisle. "The seabed surrounding the island is pretty uneven. It slopes up almost to the surface at some points before dropping to deep depths only a couple of feet further. It's why you don't see a lot of fishing boats out here…the risk of running aground is too great."

"And how is that supposed to clear up the cut phone line mystery?" Jasper asked skeptically.

"A couple of kids were out in the bay this afternoon," Esme explained. "It's very well possible that their boat cut the line when it scraped along the bottom of the sea at some point. It's happened before."

Jasper nodded, apparently accepting Esme's explanation. Rubbing his forehead, he turned towards Carlisle. "There has to be some other way off this island. A boat?"

Carlisle shook his head, looking about a million years older. "Our gardener took it a couple of days ago to pick up some supplies from the mainland…and he hasn't returned."

Bella paled as she put two and two together and realized that all their connections to the mainland had been severed. With no boat or a phone to call for help, they were stuck there with a dead woman. "There has to be something…" she muttered, as Rose started to stir again. "There has to be some way to reach the mainland." She could feel her breath coming in short pants as panic set in, her eyes fixed on the only man who could help her. "Carlisle?"

Again, Carlisle shook his head. "I have always deemed the boat and the telephone sufficient to ensure my safety and that of everyone else on this island. I never thought my wish for privacy would lead to something like this."

"You couldn't have foreseen this, Carlisle," Esme soothed, heading back to her employer since Rose was awake, breathing steadily and outwardly unharmed. "What are the chances of the phone line being out at exactly the same time the boat is gone? As tragic as all of this is, it's just a horribly unfortunate chain of misfortune."

"But we're trapped here, aren't we?" Rose sneered, obviously back to her usual self. "We're trapped here with a dead body. And it could be days until someone finally comes to save us!"

"It won't be more than forty-eight hours," Edward tried to calm her down, though deep down inside, he was anything but calm. "Remember? Jenks told us he was going to pick us up again on Sunday morning after breakfast."

"And what if he forgets?" Rose shrieked. "What if he decides to do a runner just like the gardener did? We could be trapped here for God only knows how long with Alice rotting away in the room next to us!"

"That's enough, Rose!" Emmett barked, jumping up from his chair.

"Oh, and there's her knight in shining armor again!" Rose sneered back, her artic blue eyes shooting fire at her husband. "I should have known why you were always so quick to defend that little, backstabbing bitch!"

"Shut your mouth!" Emmett roared and had it not been for Jasper pulling him back, goodness knows what kind of violence he might have resorted to; his nostrils flared with rage as he glared at his wife.

"Got you where it hurts, didn't I?" Rose huffed, the tips of her lips curling up into a sly little smile.

Bella, meanwhile, looked on in wonder. It completely baffled her how two people who seemed to despise each other so much could stay married when there was no rational reason for them to remain tied together. Neither of them were particularly religious and, as for their careers…well, there were no particular careers to speak of that demanded their prolonged state of togetherness.

But then again, it also evaded her how they could bicker like that so soon after the horrible death of one of their group. It was true that nobody particularly liked Alice and the emotions that were wrecking through Bella had more to do with shock than actual grief for the loss of Alice Brandon, but to flight like a couple of unruly children when there was a woman dead in the room next door? No, Bella just simply couldn't fathom that.

A groan silenced the room again as all heads snapped in the direction it came from to find Carlisle hunched over with a worried Esme by his side. "This night has taken a lot out of him and in his state…" Esme sighed, her movements betraying the tenderness of a lover as she tried to keep him upright. "I have to get him to bed before things take a turn for the worse."

"I'll help," Emmett offered, shooting a final glare at his wife before he stood to offer the strength of his arm to the feeble man.

Between the two of them, they managed to get him standing and with the aid of the butler, who had come in just in time, the foursome shuffled towards Carlisle's downstairs bedroom.

"If anyone would be so kind as to take pity on Ms. Brandon's maid?" the butler asked, turning around on the doorstep. The look on his face left no doubt as to the fact that _he_ wasn't going to be the one to extend that pity. "I know it is not my place to ask for your assistance in this matter but the poor girl is in a horrible state, having found out about her mistress' death, and with Jessica and poor Mrs. Cope faring no better, I don't see how I can get them all settled again."

"I'll go," Bella offered, needing to get out of the oppressing atmosphere of the sitting room before she went completely mad.

"Will you be back?" Edward whispered. "I'd very much like to talk to you before you go to bed."

Bella sighed, her heart torn about his request. "Alright," she finally acquiesced, knowing he wouldn't relent until he'd had the chance to say whatever it was that he wanted tell her. "I'll come find you when I'm done comforting poor Angela."

Edward nodded, watching with a poorly veiled admiration as she walked out of the room followed by Rosalie who claimed to be tired.

"Don't you sometimes wish you could turn back time?" Jasper remarked, coming to stand next to him.

Edward nodded. "If only to get a chance to fix this mess…"

"I'm going out for a smoke," Jasper announced, his hand clamping down on Edward's shoulder. "Care to join me?"

Both the pressure of his hand on Edward's shoulder and the look in Jasper's eyes left Edward in no doubt that this wasn't so much a request as an order. Not that it would have made any difference as Edward longed for some fresh air and a cigarette himself.

Little did he know, he was in for quite a surprise…

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Friday, March 16, 1951**_

 _ **10 PM**_

"If only things had been different, huh?" Edward joked, as they stepped out onto the terrace, the chilly sea breeze made both men shiver as they got used to the chance in temperature. "We'd have been enjoying Carlisle's finest cigars while putting a dent into his brandy collection by now."

"Or we'd have been at each other's throats over dessert," Jasper chuckled before turning serious again. "This weekend had 'murder' written all over it from the start but I'd always thought it would be more in the figurative meaning of the word."

Edward paled, almost choking on his smoke as he caught what Jasper was saying. "You mean...?"

"I have my doubts," Jasper confirmed. "This just doesn't add up."

Kicking at a few loose pebbles, Edward looked up in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"It's all a bit too much of a coincidence, isn't it?" Jasper explained, his gunmetal grey eyes piercing into Edward's soul with an intensity that made him squirm. "First the boat—our only way off this island, mind you—goes missing; Alice chokes on something. Then there's the phone line…the only other connection to the mainland, turns out to be busted? That's just a bit too much bad luck in one day for me." Taking a long drag from his cigarette, Jasper's eyes shifted slightly, staring out into the deep midnight blue of the night sky and the unlit ocean.

Edward sighed, remembering how even back in the day, Jasper had always been a bit suspicious. Hell, on a bad day the guy had been downright paranoid! And if the poor guy's experience in the war had been anything like the stuff Edward had seen, chances were that shit hadn't gotten any better over the years. "So you're thinking Alice's death wasn't an accident?"

"I'm not saying anything," Jasper hedged, "other than the observation that three freak accidents in a row make me suspicious. Besides…" he paused to take another drag of his cigarette, "I didn't mention this because I didn't want to alarm anybody, but the cut on that telephone line was too clean for my taste." He sighed, his eyes scanning his surroundings as if looking for something untoward. "Esme can talk all she likes about those harbor town boys and their boats but, I can tell you that cut wasn't made by a boat. No way in hell."

"Then it must have been the boat's propeller or something similar that could make a cut like that," Edward reasoned. Unlike Jasper, he didn't see anything suspicious in what had happened during the past couple of hours. Tragic? Yes, definitely. Creepy? Of course! But to immediately jump to foul play? No, that was a bridge too far for him.

"Maybe." He smirked, looking back up at Edward. "But it's not exactly like we're starved for suspects now, are we?"

Edward chuckled. "The list is endless." He had to hand it to the other man: there were plenty of people on the island that harbored murderous feelings towards the dead woman. If something sinister had happened, the police were going to have one hell of a job trying to get to the bottom of things.

"Right," Jasper nodded. "And you're one of the suspects."

Edward laughed, rolling his eyes. "Come on now, Jasper. Don't you think it's a bit premature to think about clapping me in irons? I was in the dining room all evening, just like you were, remember?"

"You could have cut the telephone line before we gathered in the sitting room, for all I know," Jasper countered. "There's a gap of at least two hours where none of us saw each other. God knows what you could have been up to in that time! And until we know for certain what killed Alice, I can't exclude anyone from my list of suspects."

"And how do you explain the boat, huh?" Edward grumbled, getting more and more fed up with Jasper's insinuations. "I came here straight from a movie set. How would I have had the time to lose the boat…and the gardener, for that matter?"

"Good question," Jasper pondered. "But even you have to admit that your motive's pretty strong. Anyone who has eyes in their head can see how you're pining for pretty Mrs. Black, which means that the resentment you're harboring towards Alice for throwing a wrench in your plans all those years ago must be pretty strong."

"And how am I going to get with Bella when I'm behind bars for killing someone? I'd be old and grey if I ever got out!" Edward argued. "Besides, given what happened between Emmett and Rosalie, I'd think there would be two people whose motives for murder were a lot stronger than mine. And did you see the look on Esme's face when Alice came into the room? If looks could kill, Alice would have been as dead as a doornail the minute she stepped into the sitting room!"

"I'm not saying you're the only suspect," Jasper backtracked, though his face lost none of its intensity, "or even that you're the _prime_ suspect. Just that I can't exclude you yet."

"Well, okay, Sherlock Holmes, let me know when you can," Edward joked, lighting up another smoke as the very welcomed appearance of Emmett McCarty came into view.

"What's up, guys?" the burly guy asked as he stepped out.

"Jasper is convinced we all murdered Alice," Edward announced. "How's the old man doing?"

"Not too good," Emmett answered, rubbing through his curly hair. "I don't think Carlisle will see the end of the year. Hell, with the shock of Alice's death, we should be happy if he makes it to the end of the month!"

Edward sighed, slowly breathing out smoke. "He doesn't deserve this."

"Does anyone?" Jasper shook his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the next. "I've seen more than enough death to last me a lifetime and I can tell you: nobody deserves it."

"The war was different, though," Edward argued, his eyes seeing the mangled bodies and empty, staring eyes of so many of the young men he'd fought alongside with back in Europe. "Most of the men who went to war were young, or at the very least in the prime of their lives. They deserved a lot more years than they got. An old man who lived a complete, fulfilling life, though…I'm not saying he _deserves_ to die but his death would be more acceptable. Besides, from the look of it, it doesn't look like Carlisle's life at the moment is all that worth living anymore."

Emmett nodded, agreeing with Edward's statement though, for him, having had escaped the clutches of war, there wasn't the grisly power behind it that haunted Jasper and Edward. "Did you all get as much of a shock as I did when I first saw Carlisle this afternoon?" He whistled. "What do you think's wrong with him? Could it be that's what messed up his career?"

"Who knows?" Edward answered, stubbing out his cigarette with the tip of his shoe as he saw Bella's fine-looking form appear behind one of the downstairs windows. "I've got to go. See you all tomorrow morning at breakfast."

"As if any one of us is going to get any sleep this night," Jasper muttered, barely audible as the two remaining men shifted closer while Edward crossed the terrace and went in again through the open French doors.

He found Bella in a seat next to a fire someone must have lit while he'd been outside. Apparently in big mansions like the one he was in, life just went on as planned even if there was a dead body in the room next door.

"You want one, too?" Bella asked, raising the decanter of whiskey towards him.

"Please." Walking closer he took a full glass of the amber liquid from her, rising it in a toast before he took a sip of the fine quality scotch. "I thought you didn't indulge?"

She shrugged. "Things change."

Seeing an opening, he tried, "Not everything does."

"If this is where you come up with some grand explanation of what happened ten years ago before you beg for my forgiveness, then don't bother!" Bella stopped him before he had even seized the opportunity to do so. "I'm not the same naïve girl I was back then."

"Nor am I the fool _I_ was ten years ago," he assured her. "If I could go back and change things, I…"

"Wouldn't have slept with Alice Brandon?" Bella chuckled darkly, swirling the whiskey around in her glass. "Or would you have been just be a little more inconspicuous about it so that I wouldn't find out until we were married?"

"Of course not!" Edward cried, frustration bubbling up inside of him. "I never set out to be untrue! If I were a more feeble man, I'd argue that since there was nothing between you and me at that moment, my actions, though stupid, were completely justified, but we'd both know I was lying." He sighed, rubbing his forehead before downing all the liquid in his glass in one burning gulp. "The truth of the matter is that I caved to the pressure of everyone around me who told me it would be good for my career to go along with the gossip story of the two budding stars finding each other on and off stage, and then…" Another deep sigh left his chest as he thought about the pressure he'd been under back in those days and the very stupid things it had made him do. "And then she was there…all the damn time…whispering in my ear about how your aloofness meant that you were only stringing me along, whereas she…" Shaking his head, he grabbed the decanter set on the table between them and poured another shot which he also slammed back in anger. "I made the worst mistake of my life that night."

"And what do you expect from me now?" Bella asked, her finger tracing the rim of her glass. "A tearful reunion? A happily ever after?"

"A second chance, maybe?" Edward offered, feeling his chances diminish by the second. "A shot at proving how time and experience have made me a better man?"

She sighed, putting her glass down on the table as she rose to her feet. "It's not like I can escape you right now, is it?" She was already halfway to the door by the time she finally gave the answer Edward had been waiting for with baited breath. "You have forty-eight hours."

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **2 AM**_

Bella's heart was hammering in her throat as she sped up the stairs at a pace that could almost qualify as a run.

"You're crazy!" she muttered to herself. "What on earth are you doing…leading him on like that?"

Shaking her head, she closed her bedroom door behind her, leaning het back against the cool, steady wood.

What on earth was she doing?

Of course, deep down inside she knew exactly what was going on: Edward Masen was working his weird voodoo mumbo jumbo on her again, just like he had ten years before. He'd spoken so nicely to her—the first guy who'd ever taken an interest in her like that—that he'd almost made her forget herself. She'd been such an idiot, dreaming about a future for the two of them together. She'd had it all pictured in her mind: a nice house somewhere in the country, a couple of kids, and a happy, carefree life. Of course, all of that ended when she'd found him locked in an intimate embrace with none other than Alice Brandon.

That had never been part of her dream!

It was in that moment that Bella had realized just how he had contributed to their plans. True, whenever they had been together, he'd dreamed along with her, but there had never been any promises made or vows pledged. There wasn't even anything to reproach him with. After all, had they ever truly been together? After days and weeks reading about Edward and Alice's whirlwind romance in the newspapers, Bella had begun to question her own sanity and her memories of the stolen moments she and Edward had spent together. They had been real for her, but for him she wasn't so sure.

Had he gone back to Alice and laughed about her behind her back? The thought even that he—the Edward _she_ had come to know and fall in love with—could feel something for such a woman as Alice Brandon, was humiliating.

Alice, who thought only of herself and her own advancement…a woman who had left no opportunity unused to degrade Bella.

She should have known better than to fall in love with a man like him. After all, her poor, brokenhearted mother herself had been the living, walking and talking proof of just how foolish it was to get close to an actor. Still, Bella had always thought herself too sensible to fall into a trap like that. And there she'd been, naively falling for the first pretty boy who'd smiled her way.

At least she hadn't gotten herself in trouble. Well, more than a broken heart and severely damaged self-esteem issues.

She'd gone back home to lick her wounds, utterly ashamed of herself and determined never to fall for a man's tricks again. Which was why her marriage to Jacob had been such a happy one. Well, for as long—or _short_ , being a better word—as it had lasted before he'd gone off to war. This time around, her heart had been her own when she had tied her fate to that of a man's. It had been a marriage of convenience, as they called it: she gave him an heir to his fortune and a warm, steady home base for when he returned from his long hours and many business travels, and he, in return, provided her with a safe place to call home and a respectable life.

She had been happy, in her own way.

 _Safe_.

But had she really been alive?

After what had happened downstairs just then, she was beginning to doubt it. Even after all those years and all the heartbreak that lay between them, Edward Masen still made her heart beat faster and louder than she ever thought it could.

She sighed, the face in the mirror looked worn with worry and fatigue. What was she supposed to do? In all foolishness, she had opened the door for Edward to pursue her again and she knew him well enough to know that he was going to be relentless.

She knew he would be an ardent suitor. And his words…

She sighed, her lips curling upwards involuntarily as she thought about the good times they'd shared. She'd been constantly on guard, sensing that she wasn't the first woman he'd tried to conquer and, no doubt, that some of those women had most willingly let him. At barely seventeen, she had been both so unknowledgeable about the ways of the world and so scared of everything she encountered within it that it shouldn't come as a surprise to her that Edward had been in the dark about her feelings for him.

And yet, she'd had so, so many feelings.

And they had been so strong.

Her heart had been ripped out of her chest that day, when everything had fallen apart, but she'd be lying if she didn't admit that part of those feelings were still very much alive within her heart. And that in part, she not only rejoiced in the opportunity she'd just given to Edward, it welcomed it, too.

With open arms.

Just then, a knock to her door reminded her of the fact that she'd promised a distraught Angela she could sleep in her room that night. Even though she claimed Alice hadn't said five nice words to her in all the time she'd been her maid, Angela had been completely devastated to learn of her boss' death. Apparently even someone as unlovable as Alice Brandon was able to inspire some affection or loyalty in her fellow human being.

Though Bella still found it hard to believe.

The poor girl was still sniffing when Bella let her into the room. "I just packed all of Alice's things," she managed to breathe out in between sobs. "I never thought I'd have to do that ever again. I thought that working for a younger person after my former boss died of old age, that I would never going to have to go through all that heartbreak again." Wailing, she allowed Bella to lead her to the chaise that rested against the foot of the bed. "I feel so bad for all the terrible things I thought about her!"

"I know." Bella sighed, taking one of Angela's clammy hands in hers. "But I don't think anyone would blame you for thinking bad things about Alice Brandon. I think every single soul under this roof has wished ill upon her at some point in their lives!"

"But she couldn't help being herself!" Angela sniffled. "She didn't have an easy life, you know! She was under so much pressure and…and she took all of that out on the people around her. It was her way of coping."

"That doesn't mean it's right," Bella insisted, fighting a war inside herself as all of her old resentments towards Alice resurfaced.

"I feel so guilty right now." Angela sighed as fresh tears dripped on the skirt of her uniform. "Especially because I should be grieving the death of my boss but instead I can't help being selfish." She paused, looking up at Bella with so much inner conflict in her eyes that the older woman's heart broke for the young girl. "But, then again, I can't help worrying about what I'm going to do now. I mean…I don't even know how I'm going to get home!"

"We'll all help you," Bella promised her. "How about you come with me on Sunday, when we get out of here, and I'll sort out how to get you home again? But for now, how about we try to get some sleep?" Patting Angela's hand, she rose to undress and prepare herself for the night. "I know it's going to be hard to sleep with everything that's happened, but I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a busy day. We'll need our wits about us if we're going to want to keep on top of things."

Angela nodded, waving all of Bella's remonstrations away as she started to help the other woman out of her clothes and makeup and into her nightgown. Accustomed as she was to helping others before herself, she needed the distraction of doing her job at that moment more than she ever had.

Downstairs, Edward had rejoined Emmett and Jasper out on the patio. Together, the three men were trying to put a dent into Carlisle's selection of fine whiskey while philosophizing about past and current events.

"So, Edward, have you ever been tempted to put a ring on pretty Ms. Brandon's finger?" Emmett teased. "Hell, she might have been a bit of a bitch at the best of times, but I definitely would have!"

"You did, remember?" Jasper put him in place. "Or do you want to tell us you wasted time in dragging Rosalie down the aisle?"

"I saw an opportunity and I grabbed it!" Emmet shrugged, tipping the contents of his glass back. "Worst damn mistake of my life!"

"Any one of us could have told you that!" Edward shook his head, his mind wandering back to the days when he was still young, foolish and arrogant, to when Rosalie Hale did her very best to evade Emmett McCarty. "For a marriage to be a success, it's pretty much a given that both spouses must actually like each other and it was clear even then that Rose despised you."

"Her father thought it would all turn out okay," Emmett muttered. "I should have known the bastard was only after my damn money." His father in law hadn't been the most trustworthy of men, or so Emmett had found out pretty soon after his nuptials. Not only had Richard Hale lied about his daughter's character, and the consent he claimed she'd given to their marriage; acting as their accountant, he'd made off with pretty much every penny in Emmett's hefty trust fund. "And after he'd stolen my granddad's money, things went from bad to worse as we had to move into this small, box house and were in each other's faces all the damn time!"

"So you hate each other but you stay together purely out of spite?" Jasper surmised, whistling at Emmett's affirmative nod. "That's no way to live, man!"

"It's the only way I know, my man!" Emmett chuckled bitterly. "That's why it's such a crying shame Alice went and chocked herself to death—apart, of course, from the fact that we lost a friend. The girl was going to offer me a spot next to her in Hollywood. I was finally going to escape!"

"Come on! Do you really think she would have gone through with it in the end?" Jasper remarked skeptically. "It would have been the first time she ever did something for someone other than herself."

"Screw you!" Emmett barked, his drink sloshing around in his glass. "You're just jealous because you never even went out and tried! You know you can't hack it in Hollywood, so you hide behind your damn 'cinema drain's the soul' snobbishness."

"I have to say I agree with Jasper on this one," Edward chimed in, coming to the aid of his former friend. "The only way I could have ever seen Alice coming through for you is if she stood to gain something from it." He shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable speaking so ill of a woman who was lying dead only a few feet away from them. "She liked to toy with people by making them promises she knew she was never going to keep, and stick around to watch as people's lives went up in smoke. I should know…I was one of those people."

"She wouldn't have done that to me," Emmett insisted, all but falling from the lawn chair he was sitting in as he tried to pour himself another drink. "She was a lot better than either of you bastards give her credit for."

Gently prying the bottle from Emmett's hands, Jasper was the one to speak up and put an end to their little get together. "How about we all turn in before one of us drowns himself in alcohol? We're in for a tough day tomorrow and I, for one, would like to get through it without a splitting headache."

"Too late, I'm afraid," Emmett, all chagrin forgotten, drawled as his huge frame swayed unsteadily into a standing position. "But you're right; it's time to go up and find someone to fuck." He chuckled drunkenly as started to walk towards the door, calling out over his shoulder. "I think Alice's maid might be willing. I mean, she could do with a little comforting, right?"

Jasper and Edward shook their heads as they went to pick up the nearly empty bottle and close the terrace doors behind them, before heading up the stairs themselves.

"Do you think he'll ever learn?" Jasper wondered as somewhere on the upper floor, a door slammed shut.

"I think it's too late for that." Edward smirked, remembering how much he'd hated Emmett McCarty and his bloated ego back in the day. "Besides, I think that guy was born a bastard."

Leaning against his bedroom door, Jasper nodded. "You might be right about that."

Finding his own room at the end of the corridor, Edward turned in for the night. The door closing behind him as he shrugged out of his fancy clothes before sliding in between the sheets. It wasn't long before a heavy, drunken night pulled him into unconsciousness. Therefore he was one of the last to wake when suddenly, right at the point where night starts to meet day, a shrill cry in the dark awoke the residents of Belmont Castle.

Bella and Angela, unhindered by the effects of copious amounts of whiskey, were one of the first people to follow the noise. Rushing into their robes, they shot out of their room to find that two doors next to theirs opened as well. And what they found in one of those rooms, brought an even darker shade over a weekend already spoiled by the death of one of their group.

People who knew the McCartys, and the sorry state their marriage, would not have been surprised by the sight that horrified the women's eyes. They would have said that, as shocking as the whole thing was, it was a long time coming. To Bella and Angela, however, the sight of Rosalie McCarty covered in the blood of her husband as she stood over his lifeless, bloody body was enough to make the younger woman faint to the floor as the older held on to the nearest inanimate object that could steady her as her mind started to come to a gruesome and terrifying conclusion.

There had been a murder!

Or had it been two?

Which also meant there was a murderer amongst them.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **6 AM**_

"What the hell is going on?" Edward's voice sounded gravelly as he pushed through the small crowd that had gathered at the entrance into Emmett's bedroom. What he saw when he made it inside the room sobered him up at once.

He and Emmett had never been quite close. Hell, half the time he'd hated the son of a bitch and his boisterously arrogant behavior. But to see him lying there in a pool of his own blood, eyes staring out into nothingness as an irate Rosalie was comforted by a frazzled looking Bella, his grief over the man's gruesome and untimely death was imminent.

As were the effects of a killer hangover, which caused him to speed to the waste bucket that stood in a corner of the room and empty what little contents his stomach still held in them.

"What happened?" Voicing the question that was on everybody's lips, Edward breathed a sigh of relief as Jasper, who was a little less drunk and a whole lot more up to the task of taking the lead in the situation, sauntered into the room as if he was completely master of the situation.

Edward kind of wished that was really true, since it would mean that at least someone knew what the heck he was doing.

"I…I…" Rose stammered, holding onto Bella's hand as she gathered what sense she could make from the frantic mess that was her mind. "I heard a noise coming from the room and…and I went to look. It's crazy, really… I don't know how many times I've h-heard him with his…uh, him with other women but this time I think it was different." Her hand shook violently, her eyes wide with horror as they glanced at her husband's lifeless form before focusing back on Jasper. "I found him like this. The knife...there was so much blood."

Edward managed to rush over just in time to catch her fainting body before she hit the ground. Emmett's blood creating a heavy, overpowering stench in the room as they gathered around the bed.

"We need to get her to a bed," Bella spoke, taking care of poor Rosalie while the others focused on her dead husband. "This is the second time she's fainted and I'm worried about the effect this will have on her health."

"She seems more upset than I would have thought," Edward muttered, grunting under the weight of the once waifish looking beauty queen; those days had definitely gone.

"It's one thing to hate your husband," Bella answered, leading the way through a door that connected the spouses' separate bedrooms, "but that doesn't mean that you'll dance on his grave. They spent years together. They were unhappy ones, that's for sure, but that doesn't mean you can just push what happened aside."

"It almost seems as though you're speaking from experience," Edward couldn't help but remark.

"I loved my husband," Bella snapped, assisting as Edward gently deposited Rosalie on top of her rumpled bedding. "I may not have loved him in a conventional way but there was definitely a lot of affection between us in the end." She sighed, playing with the little cross pendant that had hung around her neck ever since it had been sent to her from some godforsaken place in Europe. "I genuinely mourned his death…and I still do."

"I'm sorry," Edward was quick to apologize, a guilty blush staining his cheeks as he stepped away from Rosalie's still unconscious form. "It was wrong of me to assume."

"You're hardly the first," Bella shrugged away his apologies, "Nor, I imagine, the last." She sighed, her heart hurting both for the pale, tragic woman lying between the two of them and for her loss. "It's what happens when a young woman of modest means marries an older rich man. And I guess if I have to be completely honest, the money did appeal to me. The fact that I would have a safe, secure life after all the turmoil and scheming between both my parents, was a huge draw. But I did love him…in the end."

"Did he know?" Edward couldn't help but be curious, even if he knew it was completely inappropriate.

"That I loved him or that I married him for his money?" Bella asked, before answering both questions. "He knew on both accounts, actually. In fact, he offered his hand knowing my heart was completely unreachable to him at that time. I'd like to think that when he left for Europe, he knew my feelings had changed, even if I never really professed them. I prayed he did every night."

"I'm sure he knew," Edward assured her, torn between blinding jealousy and strong compassion. "You always wore your heart on your sleeve."

Bella smiled. "I keep forgetting how well you know me…"

"You've changed, though," Edward chuckled, remembering how he'd thought the complete opposite. It was true that she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to him but everything else about her had grown… _ripened_ into something even more attractive. "I don't think the woman you are today would have fallen for the selfish asshole I was back then."

"I'd like to think you're right," Bella agreed.

Both of them looked up as Jasper strode into the room. "Is Rosalie still unconscious?" he asked, before bringing the other two up to speed. "I don't think we should move the body. Not that I know a single thing about police work but I believe they'd want to see exactly what we found. I've locked up the room so it won't be disturbed. It goes against the grain, I know, but it's all I can do at the moment. Now if only we can find that damned butler and see if he knows a way to reach the shore without going for one mighty hell of a swim…" Sighing, he retied the strings that held his robe to his body. "At least the chef has her wits about her. She's offered to cook breakfast early because I don't know about you guys but I don't think I can sleep after what just happened."

Bella nodded, though eating was about as appealing to her as sleeping. "Do you think there's another way off this island? I thought yesterday Carlisle said…"

"I don't care if I have to build a damned boat myself!" Jasper spat as Rosalie started to stir. Knowing their presence in the room would probably not be appreciated, the men left to get ready for breakfast while Bella sat with a slowly waking Rosalie.

"Is it real?" Rose squinted against the early morning light that started to stream in through the curtains.

Bella nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid so. How are you feeling? I apologize, I know you're probably devastated but did you hit your head? Are you feeling dizzy?"

"I'm fine." Pushing herself up, Rose waved away any assistance as she got up and drank a healthy portion of the water that had been left by her bedside. "I'd like to be alone now, please."

"Are you sure?" Bella was a bit taken aback by Rose's calm, composed demeanor. It was so different from the one she'd seen only moments before, looking frantic as she held the knife that had killed her husband.

"Absolutely." The tone of her voice left little room for doubt or argument as Rose all but pushed the other woman out the door. Bella, wondering what happened as she looked at the closed door in front of her, had nothing else to do but go to her room and dress for breakfast.

Meanwhile, the men had a head start; their day attire being much less challenging to don than that of the fairer sex. Jasper and Edward met at the top of the stairs about half an hour later, as the enticing smells of breakfast already started to seep out of the belly of the house.

"It's strange but I'm actually famished," Jasper announced as they made their way down the ornate staircase at a leisurely pace, their footsteps muffled by the thick, Persian rug.

"Well, there's plenty to go around," a voice announced, the matching body appearing from behind as huge potted plant as the men arrived downstairs. It was the servant girl, Jessica, providing them with some much needed refreshments. "Mrs. Cope was awfully torn up about Ms. Brandon's death so she spent most of the night in the kitchen, cooking her heart out. Poor thing took it like she had a death in her own family."

Edward, curious about what the girl knew about the inner workings of the house, forgot to be perturbed by the maid's staggeringly forward behavior and joined her. "Have you been working here for long?"

Jessica shook her head. "I joined the household a couple of weeks ago, when Mr. Cullen started to get worse and Ms. Platt had to take up nursing him full time. Before that, she used to do a lot of the duties that fell down to me."

"And do you like it here?" Jasper asked, quickly catching on to Edward's amateur detective scheme.

"It's okay." Jessica shrugged, before adding with a coy smile, "It's a lot better now that we have company, though. Things tend to get a bit lonely out here, what with me being the only one under thirty and both Mrs. Cope and Mr. Uley being a bit strange."

Edward, playing into his role of being interested, leaned in a little closer as he asked, "A bit strange?"

Jessica nodded, coming alive under the attention of two charming gentlemen and the opportunity to gossip. "I think it's this place. It's so quiet and remote. Nothing ever happens here—well apart from last night, of course. It tends to mess with your mind, I guess, and makes you a bit too focused on yourself. I hear the man who used to own this place went completely mad and they found him floating in the water, stark naked and with a knife in his hands."

Jasper nodded pensively. "We heard Uley disappeared sometime last night. Do you know where he's off to?"

"I have no idea," Jessica replied. "But if there was another boat and he made off with it, I'm going to kill him. I can't wait to get away from this place, what with all the scary things going on here and everyone being at each other's throats all the time." She needed little urging from the men to explain herself, the words flowing virtually unstoppable since she had an opportunity to get them out. "Mrs. Cope is a dear, sweet lady but she can't think further out than the next two meals, which constantly annoys Mr. Uley. He thinks himself only a university degree away from utter brilliance, but then again, _everything_ annoys that man! He's upset at Mrs. Cope for being a bit slow, at Ms. Platt for rising above herself ever since Mr. Cullen took an interest in her, and with Mr. Cullen for not being some snooty English Earl. And now Ms. Platt and Mr. Cullen are fighting, as well!"

"You don't say!" Creeping closer, Jasper was all attention as he and Edward shared a look of understanding. Both of them were determined to get to the bottom of the situation they reluctantly found themselves in.

"They had an almighty argument last night," Jessica told them. "I don't know the details about it but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Ms. Brandon. Then, of course, poor Ms. Brandon went and died on us and I heard Mr. Cullen swear to Ms. Plat to never breathe a word about their argument to another living soul."

Again, the two men caught each other's eye, both of them surprised to hear of Carlisle somehow being mixed up in the sinister turn of events. Before they could ask any more questions, a sharp voice called out from one of the hidden doors that separated the servants from that of the guests.

"I've got to go," Jessica breathed, blushing with the embarrassment of being caught slacking by her superior. "By the way, do either of you know who went into the kitchen last night before dinner?" As the men shook their heads, she added. "I saw someone rummaging around in the pantry just before dinner and now Mrs. Cope thinks I upset her shelves!" Sighing deeply, Jessica turned on her heels and dashed out of sight as the bodiless voice called out again.

"Do you think—" Edward didn't finish his sentence. There was no need for it, as both men understood the other perfectly without words.

With every piece of information they found out about what had happened under the castle's roof during the past twenty-four hours, it was becoming more and more clear that Emmett hadn't been the first person to fall victim to a ruthless murderer.

That, in itself, should have been enough to shock them to the core.

What really hit home, however, was that every time they unveiled another piece of the puzzle, the list of suspects seemed to be growing.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **8 AM**_

Upstairs, Bella was taking a bit longer to get ready for the new day than the men had. That, in part, of course, was due to the fact that a woman's appearance took slightly longer to be put together than that of a man. Men could blissfully hop into the first presentable shirt and any suit he came across, straighten out a tie, pull a brush through his unruly hair and call himself done. Whereas a woman needed to do all that, make something of her hair and make-up, and spend hours coordinating not just the outfit for that day but also the effect that single dent into her wardrobe had on the things she planned to wear during the days ahead.

Bella sighed, pondering the irony of having too many choices to pick from when years ago she would have had sleepless nights thinking of ways to stretch her meager wardrobe. It was a luxury that she'd become so used to over the few years she'd indulged in it, that she sometimes almost forgot what it used to be like to live more frugally.

"Do you need any help?" The voice startling her out of her reminiscing, reminded her of the fact that she was still not alone.

"Thank you, Angela," she replied with a kind smile, "but I think I'll manage. I've been dressing myself for years now and, regardless of what Alice seemed to think, I don't believe I require any assistance with dressing myself."

Angela nodded, looking slightly dejected by the rejection of the woman she secretly hoped to gain employment from.

"Very well, then," Bella gave in, sighing deeply. "I supposed I'd be mad not to put your offer to good use, though I'm warning you, I'm a very stubborn patron and I demand to put on my own undergarments!"

"Noted," Angela chuckled at the other woman's warm teasing. For the most part, she was just happy to keep herself busy while she was still trapped on that godforsaken island, although her fears for the future still made her uneasy. "Now, what do you want to wear today?"

"See? That's where things start to go wrong for us!" Bella chuckled, letting the laces of her robe fall open to reveal her nightgown. "I'm used to picking my own attire from what's inside my wardrobe. I usually just stand in front of it and pick whatever appeals to me that day."

"Okay," Angela answered hesitantly, Bella's ways being completely foreign to her. As a trained ladies maid, she'd been used to having her bosses knowing exactly what kinds of outfits they had set out for different parts of the day and the designers that created them. "I'll just sit back until you decide, then."

Between the two of them, they managed to stumble through a strange and completely new routine; both of them knowing that it would last them as long as it would take to get off the island. It was a great perk that they both liked each other as it made the whole process of getting used to the two very different lifestyles a lot easier.

They were just about finished putting the final touches to Bella's look for the day—modest and unassuming as she liked it, but with a much more elaborate hairstyle than she could have achieved on her own—when a knock on the door made both women look up.

"Bella?" Esme's soft voice called out. "Is it okay if I come in and speak with you?"

"Oh, yes, of course!" Bella replied, thanking Angela for all of her hard work as the younger girl stepped away, excusing herself to wash Bella's dirty traveling clothes from the day before and make sure her travel-stained shoes were as good as new again. "How is Carlisle doing this morning? I was really concerned about him last night…and so, so sad to hear of his illness."

Esme smiled sadly, touched by Bella's interest in the man she'd cared for and loved for the past few years. "I'm afraid yesterday's tragic events have taken their toll on him. He's completely worn out and frankly, I worry if this might not have been the final straw…"

"He's much worse than he's letting on, isn't he?" Bella paled, her heart hurting for the kind-hearted director.

"I'm afraid so," Esme confirmed. "He's not ready to admit it yet but the doctor thinks he's not long for this world. He had a seizure last week, which made me fear he wouldn't even make it to this weekend. He was so looking forward to seeing all of you one last time, though, I think it made him pull through even though everyone advised him against it." Sighing, Esme added. "He needs all his strength to just keep going, to get up in the morning and make it down the stairs on his own. In his state, even the slightest bit of excitement could cut days off his life. He wouldn't hear of canceling, not when this has been the single thing he's lived for these past weeks."

In that moment, Bella couldn't help but feel ashamed for her former feelings about her weekend at Belmont. Here she'd been, moping about having to spend a few hours with a bunch of people she disliked when Carlisle had been fighting even make it to Friday still breathing! "Is there anything I can do to help him? I'm sorry, I know he's beyond healing, but is there anything that can be done to ease his pain?"

"Perhaps you could come and sit with him this afternoon after he's rested," Esme offered. "I know he wouldn't like Rosalie or one of the men to see him in his weakened state but I feel you've always held a very special place in his heart." Turning serious, she added, "I didn't tell him about Emmett's death, though, so I'd be most obliged if you kept it to yourself. I'm afraid…" Swallowing back her tears, she took a moment to compose herself again before she went on. "I'm afraid the news will kill him if he ever finds out."

Bella couldn't help but agree with Esme, her already depressed mood sinking even further at the thought of that poor man fighting for his life and the poor woman who loved him sitting by his side day and night, unable to do anything besides watching while it happened.

And so with little appetite following her agreement to sit with Carlisle, she joined the men in the breakfast room. Settling for just a cup of coffee, she joined Edward and Jasper at the table, right as they were in the middle of a discussion about the things they'd learned as they came down for breakfast.

"I'm telling you, one of them must have done it!" Jasper insisted, sitting back with an almost triumphant smile on his lips, determined he'd just solved the murder.

"Done what?" Bella wanted to know, stirring a large cloud of milk into the black liquid until it turned a sickly shade of beige.

"Killed Emmett and Alice," Edward replied dismissively. "I don't know, Jazz, we haven't even _seen_ the handyman. How are you so sure he's on the island? I still think it's the butler."

"I'm convinced the butler's lying somewhere in an unused room with a knife sticking out of his chest," Jasper guessed. "How else would the killer have gotten the keys to Emmett's room?"

"By having them on him day and night?" Edward argued. "Seriously, man, you're only making my case!"

"Wait!" Bella cried. "Are you guys certain Alice was murdered?"

"It's a bit too coincidental, isn't it?" Jasper answered her question. "Alice chokes on her food on the same night Emmett happens to get stabbed to death?" Sitting back, his eyes were all business as he added. "No, someone's killing off the cast and I, for one, am determined to find him before he finds me."

"Or _her_ , remember?" Edward chuckled, though there was a new hardness to his eyes that told Bella that he was taking this very serious. "Your other guess was a woman, wasn't it?"

"Esme, yes," Jasper nodded.

"Esme?" Bella felt an acute sense of indignation at the mention of that poor woman's name as a possible murderer. "What on earth makes you think it's her?"

"She had an argument with Alice before her death," Jasper defended his suspicions, "and don't you think it's a bit peculiar how she's keeping Carlisle away from all of this? I think she's up to something."

"She's up to saving as many days for the man she loves as she possibly can, or have you forgotten how another man's dying under this roof as we speak?" Bella fumed. "I can't believe you: here she is, caring for him while putting her own needs on the backburner, and you think she actually has time to plot and execute two murders? You really don't know women, Jasper Whitlock!"

Jasper huffed. "Be that as it may, madam, but in my eyes, she stands to lose an awful lot if her position in this house comes under fire. That alone is enough to put off some very serious warning bells in my head."

"And who says that same suspicion can't fall onto you with a few clever assumptions?" Bella countered, their argument halted by the unexpected arrival of none other than Rosalie McCarty, as she made a beeline for the food table in the breakfast room.

The change from grief stricken woman they'd seen to bed the previous night to the vivacious, almost happy looking creature that stalked into the room with the old airs and graces of the years ago, couldn't have been greater if she tried. And to say that it shocked the other diners would have been the understatement of the century.

"What?" she asked, so prickly and strangely indignant that the other people at the table found it strange. "Am I supposed to play the grieving widow now and stay in my room, crying my eyes out over his damn memory? Everyone knows I hated the son of a bitch!" Walking over to the side table, she scooped a large helping of scrambled eggs onto her plate before heaping it with bacon and toast. "As far as I'm concerned, this is the biggest favor that asshole could have ever given me!"

And just like that, the 'grieving' widow found herself at the top of three different suspects' lists.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **11 AM**_

After what passed as the most awkward breakfast ever enjoyed by four people who mostly disliked each other, Bella, Jasper and Edward were happy to see Rose leave the room. The spring in the former blonde bombshell's step, and the small, secretive smile on her lips gave her departure a somewhat sinister undertone.

"Do you really think she did it?" Bella asked, almost speechless and bewildered by what she'd just witnessed.

"She sure acts like it," Edward was quick to answer, downing the last of the coffee in his fine china cup. "But I don't know…she seems, uh, almost too obvious about it."

"I know what you mean," Jasper chimed in. "If I were the killer, I would at least put some effort into my 'grieving widow' act instead of happily traipsing around the house like she is."

Bella sighed, the oppressing feeling in her chest magnifying with each second she spent at Belmont. "I want to get the hell out of here…to some place safe." Hysteria started to bubble up as her mind frantically conjured up all sorts of scenarios where she would be next on the killer's hit list. "I just need to see my son again."

Edward, feeling how close she was to her breaking point, grabbed her into a close hug; the soothing scent of her former beau, and his protecting arms around her, brought some of the intensity of her emotions down to an acceptable level. "Let's stick close together," her protector suggested, the rumble of his voice against her ear as she pressed her head against his chest, lulling her into an even stronger sense of security. "How about we go and have a chat with Mrs. Cope? Maybe she knows of another way off this island?"

"Let's hope so," Jasper groused. "But in the meantime, I'm going to get my guns from my room. It's better to be safe than sorry, after all."

Edward cocked his brow in surprise. "You brought _guns_ to an actors' reunion?"

"I grew up in the middle of nowhere, right between the bears and hillbillies," Jasper explained. "I learned to take my guns with me whenever I went."

Bella nodded her understanding. "Do you think Mrs. Cope will want to talk to us? From the sound of it, they keep her pretty busy around here."

"There's only one way to find out, isn't there?" Edward spoke, linking his arm with hers. "Besides, if Mrs. Cope's too busy, then maybe we could see if we can get Jessica to open up some more about some of the things she told us before breakfast."

Bella nodded, remembering what the men had told her about the housemaid's revelations. She still had a hard time believing that Esme, a woman who had been nothing but kind and welcoming to her, could be somehow implicated in the murders of Emmett and Alice. "What do you think Carlisle and Esme's argument was about?"

"It has to have been about Alice," Jasper was quick to answer. "Do you remember how Esme was looking at her when she came down for dinner last night? Besides, knowing Alice, it's as good a guess as any."

The others could only nod their agreement as it was a well-known fact between them that Alice Brandon's presence in a room was bound to provoke some sort of upheaval.

"What could have been the problem, though?" Edward asked, voicing the question that lay on everyone's lips. "It's not like Carlisle and Alice were bed buddies or anything. Hell, I'd be surprised if there'd been any sort of contact between them in the last ten years!"

"Remember the rumors that went around back in the day?" Bella offered, reminding the men of the rumor that Alice had 'earned' her main part in _The Merchant of Venice_ by lying on her back. "Maybe it had something to do with that." Thinking for a moment, she added. "Maybe I can find out something about it this afternoon. Esme asked me to sit with Carlisle for a little while so she could get some rest."

"Excellent idea!" Jasper beamed, waving away the concerned look on Edward's face as he added. "In his current state, you won't have anything to fear from Carlisle. In fact, I think you'd be safer up there with the old man than out here, digging for clues about missing and murdered people with us!"

Edward couldn't help but agree, though be it grudgingly. The thought of letting Bella out of his sight for even a moment with an as yet unidentified rampant murderer stalking the house went against every instinct he had. He knew, though, that if Jasper and he were going to get to the bottom of whatever was going on, it would involve some danger…more hazards than he would ever be prepared to get Bella involved in.

Edward was no stranger to danger; as a decorated war hero, he had ventured deep behind enemy lines as the American army had advanced towards Germany in their quest to defeat Hitler. Many times, he'd looked death in the eye and not once blinked. That was his number one strength: his ability to remain cool and quick to the draw in times when others would panic and freeze. He had to admit that part of him was almost looking forward to hunting down whichever sick bastard was behind the murder of two of his former colleagues.

It was the thrill of the chase, the plunge into the uncertain that he'd missed ever since he'd returned from the battlefield.

"I'd better get going then," Bella offered. "Esme looked at the end of her strength just now and the time seems about right for enjoying a nice, comforting cup of tea in the late morning sunshine."

"And a nice, subtle third degree questioning," Jasper joked, grinning at Bella as she made to leave.

Edward tried but could not find a way to stop her; rationality outweighing the overwhelming fear in his chest. "Be safe, Bella," he urged her as she walked passed him, her fingertips touching his as she went.

Turning around, she smiled over her shoulder. "I will be, if you are, as well."

Nodding, he let out a deep sigh as she disappeared from view, curtailing his fears by getting to the job at hand. "How about we report to the kitchen?"

Jasper chuckled, following him towards the door that separated the servants. "You've got it bad, my friend. Man, you've got it bad!"

"Let's just solve this murder," Edward tried to change the subject, "or even better: find a way off this damn island!"

As the men ventured into the world downstairs, upstairs Bella was getting situated opposite a pale looking Carlisle.

"I'm sorry for the sad state you find me in, dear friend," the old man started, looking ill at ease in his robe and nightwear even though Bella could see that Esme had done her best to make him look as presentable as she could. "But I find that this is the highest level of sophistication I can strive to at this moment."

"You look dashing, sir, as you always do," Bella smiled, though inwardly she was shocked at the ghostly-white man before her. If he looked bad the day before, the past twenty-four hours had changed him into something she had a hard time reconciling with the image of the confident, vivacious director. "And besides, I did not come here to scrutinize your appearance. I'm merely here for a good cup of tea."

"So that my poor Esme can get some sleep," Carlisle added, smiling sadly as his gaze wandered to the door. "When I asked her to live with me, this was not what I had in mind."

"So you've known her for a while?" Bella fished, seeing this as her opening to gain some more information about the dynamics of the pair.

Carlisle nodded. "She was working as a nanny for some wealthy family of assholes—excuse my tongue—in New York. I used to come to the park to think about the staging of my next production and she frequented the same spot. We got to talking about life and the hand fate had dealt us; she hadn't had much luck, you see. My Esme grew up in the worst parts of town in a family riddled with criminals, and just when she thought she'd wrestled herself free from that life, her husband turned out to be the worst crook of them all!"

"Her husband?" Frowning, Bella tried to remember if she had ever heard Esme referred to as anything else but _Miss_ Platt. Besides, if Esme was still married to someone else, the intimate relationship she'd never denied having with Carlisle was nothing short of scandalous!

"He left her one night, after nearly beating her into a pulp," Carlisle explained, his face darkening with pure rage, "and nothing has been seen or heard from him since that night, and so after a while, Esme referred back to her maiden name and tried to forget him. It was luck—or at least she saw it that way—that had her ending up as a nanny, though if you ask me, it was a loveless existence that sucked the life right out of her!"

Bella nodded, urging him on while inwardly her heart was pounding with the force of Carlisle's revelations. "And you wanted to help her escape?"

"I wanted to give her everything she should have had: a loving partner, a carefree life and all the luxuries I could give her," Carlisle answered. "We were going to grow old here, together, and after my death, she could do as she chose: sell the island and retire to a place of her own choosing or live out her days in the quietude of Belmont. I never intended for her to be a slave to my slowly decaying body."

While Bella sat there, quietly absorbing the shockwave of information, Jasper and Edward were right in the middle of their own thunderstorm of information. The source of their tumultuous afternoon being the quite formidable Mrs. Cope.

An anonymous yet omnipresent factor in their Belmont hours until then, they were amazed to find a quite normally proportioned woman in her late forties or early fifties where they had expected some stout dragoon. Her demeanor, however, was more befitting the latter as she ranted about the unfairness of life in general, and her own life in particular.

"…and how am I supposed to get dinner on the table when all the members of staff keep doing as they damn well please?" she huffed, her muscular arms digging into a huge pile of dough. "First Sam goes missing with the keys to the drinks cabinet just when I need red wine for the boeuf bourguignon I have planned for dinner, and then Jessica ups and disappears as well! And Mr. Carlisle wants his lunch and feels like Esme's too delicate to go and fetch it for him – like he's some great English lord who has a staff of thirty instead of three. As if I can do all of this on my own! I haven't even been able to go down to the cellar to see if there's some way to get into the wine cellar without the damn keys!"

"Do you want us to pop down and have a look?" Jasper offered, much to Edward's amazement. Shushing Edward's remonstrance, he stepped forward, placing one hand on Mrs. Cope's pale arm. "If you tell us what to look for, we could fetch the wine for you and have a look around to see if we can find Jessica, as well."

Mrs. Cope, mollified by the gentleman's offer, quickly rattled off the name of the wine she was looking for, along with directions through the maze of subterranean rooms. As he pulled Edward behind the cellar door, Jasper whispered conspiratorially, "This will give us the perfect opportunity to snoop around Belmont's lower level."

Edward nodded, finally catching on to what Jasper was saying as they opened each and every door on their way to the wine cellar and peeked inside for signs of any disturbances but finding none.

Until they reached their final destination.

There, lying in a pool of blood with the bottle of wine Mrs. Cope requested, was Sam Uley.

Dead.

And for some time, it appeared, as his eyes stared into nothingness as a knife stuck out of his chest.

Murdered.

Just like Jasper had said.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **1:30 PM**_

As Edward stood transfixed, trying to rationalize the new suspicions that started to take up room in his mind, Bella sat enraptured by the wealth of information Carlisle was providing about Belmont Castle and its inhabitants.

"The people on the mainland actually warned me against buying this place." Carlisle sighed wistfully as he stared out of the window, his eyes milky with the strain of disease. "They told me the reason it was practically lying in ruin when I first set eyes on it was because it was cursed." He frowned, drawing his eyes away from the horizon as they settled upon Bella. "Apparently not a single owner has died of natural causes. I thought, with my bleak prospects, I might defeat the odds. I'm not so sure now, though."

"W-what do you mean?" Bella stammered. Mindful of Esme's warning, she was trying desperately not to let any of her fears about what had happened outside Carlisle's relatively peaceful haven of nescience seep into her face or her voice.

"I'm not blind, sweet girl," Carlisle chuckled, "nor am I deaf. People talk…sometimes right outside this room when they think I'm deep in my slumber. The truth is, though, that the bliss of sleep often eludes me these days." A sad sigh preceded a morbid confession as he went on, "It's hard to give into sleep when you're not quite sure whether or not you will wake up again."

"So you know?" Bella asked in an unsteady voice.

"I know Emmett was killed last night, yes," Carlisle solemnly confirmed, "and I'm pretty sure what that means." Another sigh escaped his lips. "I now wish that I never would have entertained the silly idea of bringing peace among my former troupe of actors. It was a vain quest…and look where my vanity has brought us all!" The look of loathing on his face as he stared out of the window again, broke Bella's heart.

"You didn't know," she tried. "Nobody could have known that this was going to happen." _Nobody except for the killer._

"I knew about the curse, didn't I?" Carlisle countered. "Don't worry, dear, the disease hasn't gotten to my brain. It's just that I should've let sleeping dogs lie. Why did I have to go and stir up all this unfinished evil just so that I could meet my maker with a little more smugness in my pocket?"

"Your motives were pure," Bella insisted. "If I would have doubted that for even a second, I never would have come here. You, nor anyone else for that matter, couldn't have foreseen it would come to this."

"But I could have prevented it simply by living out my final days in peace and obscurity," Carlisle countered.

Before anything else could be said, Angela arrived with a lunch tray; the unease in her movements betrayed that she had little experience with that particular side of service. "I offered poor Mrs. Cope my help, with her being so understaffed at the moment," she explained, blushing as she realized she might have said too much before dashing out of the room as if afraid that one of its occupants was going to whip her.

"Mrs. Cope is understaffed?" Carlisle frowned, his face tired but determined in wanting a satisfactory answer to his question.

"Mr. Uley seems to have gone missing during the night," Bella explained. "I think I heard someone say that he might have found some mode of transportation and was going to get help from the mainland." Of course what Bella didn't know at that point, was that it was the absence of Jessica that had prompted Angela's quick offer to help. She wasn't yet aware of the sinister discovery the boys had made a couple of floors below her, either.

As Esme came in, visibly refreshed if not still a little sleepy, the look of longing that passed between the couple made Bella realize that her presence in the room was no longer required and so, with a fond goodbye to Carlisle and a slightly more strained adieu to Esme, she took her leave.

The minute she'd finished her descend, a piercing scream sounded from an open door leading to the servant's realm below.

"They killed him!" A voice she faintly recognized as belonging to the cook wailed. "I loved him…and they killed him!"

Running towards the sound into the downstairs part of the house, she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Edward's soothing voice over her own, breathless gasps. "Please sit down, Mrs. Cope, before you hurt yourself. Is there anything I can fetch for you?"

"He's dead and I can never tell him now!" the poor heartbroken woman went on, her slumped figure slowly came into view as Bella finally reached the safety of Edward's presence. "And nobody will ever know what a truly wonderful man he was!"

Bella's hand was quick to search out Edward's open palm, the comfort soothing the worst of her panic as she placed her free hand on Mrs. Cope's shoulder. The poor woman didn't react to it; her sobs were heart wrenching as she lamented the loss of what appeared to have been her lover. "They couldn't appreciated him…nobody could. He gave everything he had; every single day of his life poor Sam worked himself into the ground for those ignorant, stuck up fools and they didn't even see it. They just took it all for granted like he was nothing!"

"There, now, Mrs. Cope." Jasper appeared from seemingly out of nowhere, his voice soothing yet commanding as he lifted the grieving woman to her feet. "You need to get out of this room and take in some fresh air. I've switched off the stove and everything else that could burn the place down for you."

Mrs. Cope nodded as she numbly clung to Jasper's arm, allowing him to guide her out of the kitchen and up towards the main part of the house.

"I don't know if I trust him," Edward whispered in Bella's ear as they followed.

Bella frowned, wordlessly asking him for an explanation which she didn't get as they had reached the grand entrance hall, where Rose and Angela had gathered in the wake of the alarming sounds coming from below.

"Mr. Uley is lying dead in the basement," Jasper announced, eliciting another round of wails from Mrs. Cope. "I'm taking Mrs. Cope out to the terrace and I'd advise all of you to follow."

"What?" Rose shrieked, though Bella was unaware whether her outburst was caused by the shock of another killing or the outrage of being ordered around by a man she had always considered beneath her. Bella imagined it was a bit of both, her conviction strengthened as the former beauty queen recomposed herself. "Why the hell should I follow you without so much as an explanation of what happened?"

"Because I'm done playing nice!" A gun was drawn before anyone could blink; Edward stepped in front of Bella almost as if on instinct as the terrifying sound of a pistol cocking made everyone think their final hour had struck.

It wasn't, however, one of the other people present that Jasper pointed his gun at, though the intensity of his gaze as he pointed his pistol upwards caused little relief. "I want to get out of this alive and if that means I'll have to keep you all under shot in the living room until that damn boat gets here, then so be it. I'm not taking any chances!"

"And if you think I'm going to bunk with a murderer for the foreseeable future then you don't know me at all!" Rosalie shrieked, taking a step towards the staircase.

The shot firing through the hall was deafening; Edward grabbed hold of Bella and tackled her to the floor as he crouched protectively over her while everyone else, too, scurried for cover.

"Are you okay?" he whispered frantically, his thumb tenderly brushing away the tears of fear that had formed in the corners of her eyes.

Bella nodded, her frightened eyes wide as she clung to him while all around them hell broke loose.

" _Now_ will you fucking listen to me?" Jasper spat as the gun smoke slowly lifted from his revolver.

"God, you're going to kill us all!" Rose stumbled backwards, her still beautiful face stricken with fear as she backed up against the wall. "You're crazy!"

"As I said: I'm only out for my own survival," Jasper replied calmly. After all, _he_ was the one holding the gun. "As soon as we get the hell out of dodge, I'd be quite happy to get you all out of my sight and never see you again for as long as I live."

"And will we be alive to tell the tale?" Rose snorted darkly, her continued opposition baffling most of the others present in the room.

"If you do what I say and keep your trap shut, you just might," Jasper replied. "I have no intention of killing anyone, provided everyone plays by my rules. If I find you sneaking off, I'll jump to the conclusion that you're the killer and you can bloody well rest assured that I'll kill you before I allow you to get a shot in."

"Spoken like a true killer," Rose sneered, though she did move towards the living room.

Jasper merely chuckled as his eyes followed her every move. "I knew you'd come to see sense one day."

Giving him the finger, Rose disappeared into the living room with Angela and a still distraught looking Mrs. Cope hot on her heels. Meanwhile, Edward had helped Bella get to her feet again, making sure to always keep his body between Jasper and her as he made sure she'd come to no harm.

"Are you alright?" he whispered, linking their fingers as he slowly tugged the trembling woman into the living room.

Bella nodded. "Strangely enough, Jasper's move kind of makes sense…even if he scares me right now."

"I know," Edward muttered back. "I don't know if I trust him, though."

"Why?" Bella asked as the two of them took up a spot on the sofa, far away from where Jasper was still duking it out with a perpetually petulant Rose.

"He predicted the exact way Sam was killed," Edward whispered back, trying not to let on just how much that little fact had spooked him. "It's like he knew."

Bella's eyes briefly flittered to the place where Jasper and Rose were still locked in a battle of wills. "Do you think he's the killer?"

"Anyone could be at this point." Edward sighed, feeling more frustrated than he'd ever felt in his life. At least in the war, he knew who he was fighting against. And as faceless and elusive as his enemy had been when he was struggling for survival in the Ardennes, he preferred knowing who was on his side and who wasn't.

"Thank you for protecting me." Never letting go of his hand, Bella angled her body towards him. "You could have gotten hurt when…"

"You heard Jasper: he wasn't shooting to kill," Edward spoke, shrugging away Bella's gratitude. "Besides…don't you know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you? I lost you once; I'd rather die than lose you again."

"Edward," Bella's voice was full of emotion as her heart burst with feelings that had been dormant for so long.

Before she had a chance to say anything else, though, Jasper called them all to attention. "Okay, so this is how it's going to be," he started. "Everyone's going to stay here in this room until the boat comes to pick us up. In a minute, I will escort Rosalie, Angela and Mrs. Cope downstairs to gather some provisions while Bella and Edward go up to get the others."

The others…

The mention of Carlisle and Esme made Bella gasp and look around her in shock. Because in all of the commotion, nobody had noticed that their party was lacking two of its members. It was strange that they had somehow missed both episodes of the excessive grief of Mrs. Cope's, and the shot fired into the ceiling, even with Carlisle being so ill.

And yet, somehow, they had.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **2:30 PM**_

"You want me to go up there, unarmed, when God knows what might happen?" Edward challenged. He was totally and completely against Jasper's plan, as it divided the group when they should have banded together, as Jasper had first insisted. Furthermore, it put both Bella and him in acute danger; something he'd been trying like hell to avoid.

"Mrs. Cope," Jasper spoke, diverting his attention to the still sobbing chef. "Do you know if Carlisle keeps any weapons in the house?"

"H-he has a g-g-gun in h-his desk drawer," Mrs. Cope whimpered, leaning heavily on Angela's support as the younger woman hugged her close. "T-top drawer."

"Then we'll all go and retrieve it together," Jasper decided, turning his attention back to Edward. "I assume you won't have as many problems going upstairs if you're armed against the possible dangers you might find there?"

Edward nodded. He knew _someone_ had to go up there and even though he still wasn't convinced _that_ someone should be him, one look at Bella's anxious face and the odds were shifting. "I still don't like it…but, yeah, I'll do it." He had little pause to think about the implications of Jasper's offer. After all: a killer probably wouldn't be as eager to outfit another member of their party with a gun.

But then again, why would Jasper keep everyone hostage at gunpoint only to let Edward and Bella out of his sight—and with a gun, too! Unless, of course, Jasper had deemed them innocent in all of the events that had come to pass.

Or they were walking into a trap that no gun could save them from?

Reluctantly pushing up from the sofa, he offered Bella his hand. "Keep close to me, love," he whispered.

She nodded, biting her lips as her hand slipped into his outstretched palm. She seemed as tense and nervous as he was; frail and on the point of breaking but bravely keeping it together.

They followed Jasper into the study that adjoined the sitting room; walls covered in posters that had advertised some of Carlisle's greatest successes. And front and center in the room hung the one advertising his greatest triumph.

The Merchant of Venice.

Bella had never been able to look back fondly upon that period of her life. To her, it would always be about the pressure and guilt her father had put upon her to persuade her to use the talent he was sure she'd inherited.

And she had.

But it was more a curse than a blessing.

Bella's early childhood had been relatively peaceful. Her parents, once in love but soon finding that passion was the only thing they'd had in common, were quite happy to live on opposite ends of the country from one another, and kept their marital status only as a token to long forgotten times. It had meant that throughout her formative years, her father had been an occasional visitor, though as she grew up and her talent became more obvious, his visits had increased.

And so had his threats to take her away.

To Charles Swan, it was an open and shut case that Bella should come to New York. After all, with her unique talent to disappear within the character she had assumed, the city would make her into one of its biggest stars. And him, the 'power behind the throne'.

Charlie Swan liked power. Although he, himself, had never risen to more than the main supporting role, he saw the perfect opportunity to break into the main spotlight with his daughter.

In the end, she had given in to his constant pressure, though be it under her own circumstances. She'd reluctantly agreed to try _one_ season in New York and have her father introduce her to all of his powerful friends in the acting world. After that, if she still wasn't interested in pursuing a career on the stage at the end of it, he would leave her be.

It had been a season of horrors for Bella. As used as she had been to peace, quiet and friendliness, she found the New York acting scene harsh, cruel and as far away from where she wanted to be as possible. She'd missed her home terribly and though she loved being on the stage, the rest of her life there had slowly crushed her soul.

The only light had been her friendship and budding feelings for the only person in the cast who she felt a connection to. And in the end, he had broken her heart.

"Alright," Jasper called everyone to attention, pulling Bella out of her reverie as he handed an imposing looking revolver to Edward. "As we discussed: the two of you will go up to see what's keeping Carlisle and Esme while we'll go down to get some provisions that will see us through to tomorrow's pick-up time. If anyone sees something suspicious, call out and the rest will come running. If not, we'll reconvene in the sitting room as soon as possible."

Edward nodded, once again taking Bella's hand as the other clung to the gun. It had been ages since he held one in his hand and the feeling of harsh steel against the sweaty palm of his hand brought him back to a night spent in some godforsaken Belgian forest, clutching his gun as he fought against the rain, the cold and the tiredness threatening to pull him under as around him, the Germans were sneaking around with a deadly intent.

He hadn't wavered then, nor would he ever.

"Let's go," he said to the woman he was desperately trying to protect. "The sooner we get up there, the sooner we can come back down."

Silently, they left the room as the others geared up for their own expedition.

"This place is so beautiful," Bella muttered, her eyes sweeping around the magnificent great hall. "And yet I can't wait to get the hell out of here and never come back."

"I know," Edward nodded. "It's a shame, though. I think Carlisle has really been looking forward to this weekend."

"He feels so guilty about what's happened," Bella answered, thinking back to her conversation with the old man. "He seems so frail…so torn up. I half wonder if he's even going to survive this weekend."

"At this moment he has as much of a chance as any one of us," Edward mused, chuckling wryly. "It's not exactly what I had in mind either."

"What did you have in mind?" Stopping halfway up the stairs, Bella looked at him in earnest as she waited for his reply.

"Trying to gain forgiveness for a mistake I made all those years ago," he replied in earnest. "When Carlisle's invitation came, I just jumped at the chance. I figured it was my one and only shot at seeing you again and trying to win you back."

"You called me love, just now," she whispered, still overwhelmed by his side of the truth when she had been holding onto her own version of it for so long. "You called me that before," she spoke, diverting attention from their surroundings to the winter when they had both been young and he had been tragically foolish. "That day, when you took me ice skating in Central Park."

He nodded. "It was as true then as it is now, even though I had no idea of what love really was back then." He sighed, remembering how torn up he'd been on the inside. It had been three days before Bella caught him with Alice and the plan that would eventually destroy his chances at love and happiness had already been set into motion. The truth had been at the tip of his tongue all day. He'd wanted nothing more than to forewarn the beautiful, wonderful girl he'd spent the day with about what was going to happen so that she wouldn't despise him. But he'd been sworn to secrecy. "For what it's worth: I wanted to tell you the truth that day."

"The truth?" Bella frowned as they slowly progressed to Carlisle's study. "You mean that you were seeing Alice on the side?"

"No," Edward denied, finally revealing what he should have told her ten years before, "that my agent and Alice's had convinced me to enter into a harebrained scheme to further my own career and save her reputation."

"So it really was all a ruse?" Bella whispered, shocked to the core as she tried to marry what she'd seen all those years ago to what she was hearing. "But I saw…"

"What you saw was Alice trying to get her way—as usual," Edward huffed, thinking back on those disastrous days. "We both knew that with the right kind of attention, we could get the big studios in Hollywood interested in offering us a contract. But as time went by, the play got attention but not enough to produce the kind of offers we were looking for." He sighed. "And that was when somebody came up with the unholy plan of making it look like we were in love. You know? The story of Portia and Bassanio come to life."

"But…you were living together in Los Angeles!" Bella cried, the words she knew starting to shift on its axis. "Was all that a lie?"

Edward shook his head. "I wish I could say so…but no. After you left…" Again, he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes and stubbly beard as he thought things through before he went on. "She had me right where she wanted me, I guess. And I fell right into her trap, dancing to her tune until she grew tired of having me as her little plaything and threw me away again."

"She's good at that," Bella remarked, her bitterness showing on her voice.

"It was only after the dust had settled and I had the space to think that I realized just how much of a fool I'd been," Edward went on. "I was so damn obsessed with my career that I let the best thing I could ever have had slip through my fingers…and for what?"

"But you did make a name for yourself," Bella argued. "You have it all: the big parts, raving reviews, a huge mansion in the Hollywood Hills and women throwing themselves at your feet."

"It isn't worth it." Edward shook his head. "True, I love acting and the parts I get challenge me to use all of my abilities, but after a while all of that started getting old." Chuckling, he rubbed his hand through his hair. "Ten years ago your dreams of settling down somewhere and leading an obscure family life scared the shit out of me. Now? Frankly I can't wait to have that."

"Who are you and what have you done to Edward Masen?" Bella giggled, jumping slightly when a sound from below made them both realize that trips down memory lane, no matter how important to both of them, were a little inappropriate given the situation they were in. "I guess we'd better head up, right?"

Nodding, Edward clutched the gun as they quickly made their way up the stairs and down the corridor to Carlisle's room.

The door was closed, which was odd since it had been open most of the time during the day, to allow Carlisle to feel as connected to the guests in his house as he could be, given his illness. It had been open when Bella had left so she immediately wondered who had closed it.

"Esme?" Knocking on the door, she felt Edward shift into a protective stance beside her, the click of his gun being cocked made the hairs at the base of her neck stand on end. "Carlisle?"

There was no reply and, sharing a quick look with Edward, Bella knew that there was only one thing to do. So, taking a deep breath, her hands clasped around the door handle, her heart hammering in her throat as it yielded easily to her touch.

Light poured into the hallway as the door slowly creaked open but before it could reveal anything, Edward's hand stopped her. "Is anyone in here?" he called out.

A muffled groan made them quick to act; Edward's gun drawn as he kicked open the door to reveal a scene of utter carnage.

A table had been thrown over, its contents strewn all over the floor beside it as the trail of destruction stopped near a pile of clothes.

Bella sucked into a deep breath, her urge to run towards the pile only hindered by Edward's arm drawing her back as she realized it wasn't a pile…it was Esme.

"Please…" A long, drawn out plea for help came as Esme shifted slightly.

"Stay close to me," Edward warned her, his gun hand tracing the sides of the room before he deemed the coast clear enough for them to move. "Don't look to the side."

As always, those kinds of warnings were spoken to deaf ears, as it were those exact words that drew her eyes to the bed.

A cry welled up before she could stop it at the horrific sight of Carlisle, propped up against the headboard; his lunch tray still on his lap as his eyes stared vacantly ahead while his mouth hung open in a sinister grimace that only had one common cause in a human being.

Death.

"No!" Bella cried, her legs almost giving out as she realized the killer had most likely struck again. It had been her worst fear when Jasper had ordered them to investigate the absence of the pair and part of her had even prepared for every eventuality. Thinking about it, though, was something completely different than coming across the harshness of reality.

 _Esme_.

Thinking quickly, she crouched down, grimacing at the sight of a puddle of vomit close to Esme's head as she tried to turn the nurse onto her back.

" _Poison_ ," Esme panted laboriously, before her eyes rolled backwards.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **3 PM**_

"Is she…?" Edward didn't have to finish his question, the horrible meaning all too clear as Bella pressed her finger to the pulse point in Esme's neck.

"She's still alive." Bella breathed a sigh of relief, brushing a few dampened strands of hair away from Esme's forehead. "But barely." She sighed, her eyes taking in the scene of utter chaos around her. "I think she made herself sick…that's what must have saved her."

Edward nodded, his eyes zeroing in on the lunch tray that sat on the bed. The plates of sandwiches remained untouched but the two bowls of soup had obviously been disturbed. "Someone must have poisoned their food then," he mused, thinking out loud.

"It makes sense." Bella nodded, as she added up the bits and pieces of information they could find around the room. "She would have helped Carlisle eat first before touching her own plate."

"And by the time she did, Carlisle must have showed the first signs of poisoning. Poor man!" Edward finished. "That means we're looking at someone who has access to the food."

"Angela," Bella answered, her anger building as she thought about the way in which Alice's maid had tried to insert herself into their group. "She was bringing in the lunch tray right when I was leaving."

"Or the cook," Edward added. "Something tells me we can't rule her out just yet, either." Grabbing the gun, he added. "We should warn Jasper; if anything just to get his help in carrying Esme downstairs."

Bella nodded, shielding her ears as Edward released the trigger and a deafening gunshot rang out through the room.

Only a few seconds passed before Jasper stormed in; gun drawn and eyes wild as he scanned the room. "Well, shit!" he gasped, his eyes taking in the scene that Bella and Edward had entered into only moments before.

"Esme's still alive," Bella was quick to fill him in. "We need to get her downstairs to give her what help we can."

"Do you know…"Jasper's eyes did another scan of the room as he came closer, assisting Edward as he lifted Esme's unconscious body in his arms.

She groaned, obviously in pain, as her head fell back; the strain of keeping herself alive almost proving to be too much of a challenge for the very sick woman. Bella wondered how long they would be able to keep her breathing. It was clear that Esme needed a doctor… _medicine_. There might be something in the house they could give her but would it really be enough to help fight whatever it was that was killing her?

"Poison," Edward answered. "It was the food."

A dark look passed between the two gentlemen. "We'd better get back downstairs, then," Jasper muttered. "I left Rose in the sitting room with the bulk of our provisions but Angela and Mrs. Cope had just gathered the last of the stuff we needed and I told them to go ahead and bring it in."

"Quick then," Edward nodded, handing his gun to Bella as he followed Jasper out of the room.

The cool metal against her hand made Bella shiver. On the one hand, the presence of the gun gave her a sense of security. After all, with a killer running around the house, every means to defend herself and her friends would be welcomed with open arms. On the other hand, though, the feeling of the cold, heavy object in her hand gave her the creeps. Bella had never been one for guns and danger. Once, when she'd been a little girl, her uncle had taken her on a hunting trip. Bella couldn't remember a time when she'd cried as hard as when the first deer had been shot somewhere in the far distance.

It put her off violence for the rest of her life…and off meat for some considerable time, as well.

And then, of course, it was that same violence that had taken the life of her husband, far away on some godforsaken beach in Europe.

No, there had been times in her life where Bella wished she was brave—right then being one of them—but when she was honest with herself, she could admit that it wasn't one her character could brag about. She was the kind of person who tried to blend into the background as she quietly bore whatever hand fate had dealt her. Not the one who actively stood up for herself or met the dangers on her path head on.

It had shaped her fate.

Rushing down the stairs, nothing seemed out of the ordinary as they made their way back to the safe haven of the sitting room, at first. As they entered, however, it didn't take them long to realize that everything was not okay.

Rose was lying face down in the middle of the room, a small stain of blood marring her long, golden tresses. As Bella rushed forward, Jasper was quick to secure the room while Edward gently placed Esme on one of the sofas before joining Bella on the floor.

"Is she…?" he asked for the second time in only hours.

Much to his relief, Bella shook her head. "She's just unconscious, though judging by the wound, she got knocked on the head pretty hard."

"Don't worry," Jasper mused wryly. "It would take one hell of a job to crack that stubborn head of hers. There's no getting through that skull, even with a sledgehammer!"

Bella could only force a smile at Jasper's attempt at humor, her worries too great for any joke to slip through their stifling hold. "It has to be Angela or Mrs. Cope, then."

Edward nodded. "Yeah. I somehow doubt Rose would do this to herself."

"And ruin her pretty face?" Jasper snorted. "Never!"

"But what are we going to do now?" Bella asked, shivering as she thought about what was taking place somewhere around the property at that very moment. "Both of them are gone and if one of them is guilty…that means the other is innocent...trapped. And…" Bella's voice trailed off, tears forming in the corners of her eyes as she thought about the anguish one innocent woman must have been feeling at that moment.

"You're forgetting the gardener," Jasper mused. "Just because they said he'd gone to the mainland, doesn't mean he actually did. What if he's been hiding out here, killing us off one by one?"

"Either way," Bella stated softly. "There's at least one person out there, at the mercy of a killer."

"We'd better get moving, then." Jasper sighed, his appetite to go out there and face the rampant murderer that was hiding in God only knew which corner of the house was as appealing to him as eating life snakes, but he knew he had to do it.

An innocent woman's life was at stake and, even if he didn't really know that woman, his mama had instilled enough of the behavior of a gentleman in him to keep his behavior in check. As a man, he felt duty bound to protect those who were unable to protect themselves. It was that thought that had made him volunteer to go to war and fight for all those people in Europe that had been left all but defenseless against the nazi-evil that surrounded them, and it was that same notion that steeled his resolve again.

Something had to be done.

"So how are we going to do this?" Edward asked, getting impatient with the whole 'doing nothing' thing. Like Jasper, the thought of facing a rampant murderer didn't exactly tickle his fancy but sitting back and doing nothing drove him nuts. Rationally, he knew that Jasper needed some time to devise a plan; a scheme that allowed them to go in there, save the day and return home alive and kicking. Unlike Jasper, though, he was more of a man of action. Where Jasper had earned his glory in the war by sheer, tactical genius (watching and waiting until he was certain of success before sending his team in to do as much damage with as minimal loss to their own unit), Edward had been lauded for leading his men into bold, dangerous attacks that hardly anyone else dared to execute.

"Bella will stay here with Rose and Esme," Jasper started, his eyes keenly scanning the room for dangers and possibilities. "Before we leave, we'll help her barricade all entryways except the one we're leaving through." Turning to Bella, he was quick to add, "You'll put something heavy in front of that one when we're gone and only open the door when you're certain it's one of us on the other side."

"How do I know you're not under duress?" Bella asked, her mind quick to catch up now that it had something to do. And with the fog of constant fear and worry finally starting to lift, she was quite eager to do as much as she could to help them all make it through their ordeal.

"Smart thinking!" Jasper nodded. "We need to think of something that won't attract attention. How about a code word?" Jasper's smile widened as the plan started to take shape in his mind. "If either one of us knocks on the door, you ask for a password. We need to think of two responses: one to let you know it's safe to open the door and one to let you know the killer has us."

"Okay." Bella tapped her lips as she tried to think of something.

"How about 'Antonio' and 'Shylock'?" Edward chimed in. "They shouldn't be too hard to remember?"

"Too obvious," Jasper argued. "Even with the killer not being one of us, the chance that they know Shylock's the bad guy is too big of a risk. The minute they are on to something, they'll kill us and our chance will be lost."

"Okay…" Edward's voice trailed off as he tried to think of a better scheme. "How about we use our stage names in case of danger and our own to indicate it's safe? There's no way any killer's going to know which way we use them."

Even Jasper couldn't see any fault in that plan. "So we're all agreed, then?"

Bella nodded. "Then I guess we're going to need to move some furniture."

Much to their relief, they found that all doors and windows could be easily barricaded, even though they didn't have the keys to lock the internal doors. After a couple of heavy oak dressers and a bunch of side tables were moved, they felt sure that Bella would be able to manipulate the sofa on her own after the men had gone.

"Be safe," Bella whispered, her throat constricted and her eyes wet with tears as she and Edward said their goodbyes. "I don't know what I'd do with myself if…"

"Don't think about that," Edward insisted. "I've spent years trying to find my way back to you and now that I'm on the brink of succeeding, I'm not going to let something as stupid as a serial killer stand in my way. I _will_ return to you."

"I'll hold you to that promise!" Bella sniffed, before pressing her lips to his in a smoldering kiss.

Their second first kiss.

A kiss that promised to be the first of many.

That was…if he managed to come back alive.

"Now I'm really coming back!" Edward joked, tenderly caressing her cheek before taking a step back. Sharing a look of understanding with Jasper, he grabbed hold of his gun a little tighter as he nodded. "Let's go then."

A final look was shared between Edward and Bella as they stepped back out into the main hall before she closed and locked the door. The men stayed, listening as she pushed the sofa in front of it. It was only when they were sure she was safely behind those doors with Rose and Esme that they left.

Bella's heart hammered in time with their receding footsteps as she kept her ear to the wooden door. Even barricaded in as she was, she felt as far from protected as she ever had.

As long as there was a killer out there, nobody was safe.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **3:30 PM**_

Bella had never felt so alone.

With two unconscious women in the room and precious little else than a heavy lampshade to defend herself with if the killer somehow managed to sneak into the sitting room, she jumped at every sound, even the ones she was making herself. And as the echoes of the retreating footsteps of Edward and Jasper faded, she finally gave in to a deep urge she had been suppressing ever since Alice had fallen face-first into her soup bowl.

She cried.

Soundlessly, and in constant fear of somehow alerting the killer to her lonely state she leaned against the wall, letting her tears run free. The wall felt like her only ally as she let her body drop down against it, her arms hugging her legs to her chest as droplets of tears fell down on her expensive silk blouse.

She couldn't find it in herself to care that she was probably ruining a garment from which the cost of it alone could have supported her and her mother for an entire month in her previous life. All she could think about was how much she wanted a lot more days in the future.

She wanted more time with her son to see him grow into the man she knew he could be and to let him know just how much she loved him.

She wanted more time to show her snooty mother-in-law that class wasn't defined by birth and that a small town girl from a not-so-well-to-do family _could_ go into society with her head held high.

She wanted more time to find out what had happened to her dad during those final years, when contact between the two of them had been sparse at best and non-existent at worst.

She wanted to visit her mother's grave and put some fresh flowers on the marble tombstone bearing her name.

She wanted to have a conversation with Edward that was probably some ten years overdue. Bella wanted to see if maybe there was a chance for them after all…for him to meet her son and fit into her life back home.

She wanted… _God_ , she wanted to live!

 _So much._

But most of all, she wanted off the island.

After wallowing in self-pity for a while, Bella finally pushed away from the wall. Feeling sorry for herself wasn't going to make her any safer than manning up and doing something constructive. Like checking on the two women entrusted to her care.

Esme was still very much in the same state; her body obviously trying to fight off whatever poison had invaded it as she thrashed around on the sofa. Bella's heart broke as she listened to the muffled groans escaping her mouth. It was obvious the woman was in pain but, not knowing where or how to fix it, there was nothing Bella could do but wet a piece of cloth in one of the buckets of water the women had brought into the room and cool Esme's forehead with it.

At least with Rose, she wasn't as powerless to do something. Taking another piece of cloth, she wiped away the small trickle of blood that had seeped from the place where a heavy object had impacted with her head. The bleeding had mercifully stopped, though Bella suspected Rosalie was going to have a sore head and a bruise to match for a couple of days.

As the cool fabric made contact with her forehead, Rose started to stir; her movements uncoordinated at first but more sure of herself as she slowly started to return to the land of the living.

"Bella?" Blinking against the fading afternoon light, she made out the figure hovering over her. "What…did you?"

"Calm down, Rose," Bella soothed, trying to keep Rosalie as still as she could even though the woman was struggling to sit up. "Don't try to speak or move before you're ready."

"Mrs. Cope…" Rose groaned, her body sagging back against the stack of pillows they'd placed under her head.

"Do you want to know if she's safe?" Bella tried, her gut instinct still telling her it must have been Angela, even though it made no sense for her to still be alive if Angela was indeed the killer, seeing as she'd shared a room with the woman the previous night.

Rose shook her head. "She's the one who did this to me," she whispered, her hand clutching the formidable bump on her head. "She snuck up on me with a rolling pin." Groaning, the former blonde bombshell added. "I know…how very cliché of it to happen this way."

"Cliché or not, I wish there was a way I could let the guys know," Bella muttered, dabbing Rose's forehead with the cloth as she tried to help the woman into a sitting position. "They've gone downstairs to see if they can catch the killer."

"So Mrs. Cope has Angela?" Rose asked, her bottom lip trembling as she too seemed to struggle with the overwhelming emotions their weekend at Belmont had stirred. "I do hope the girl will make it out of here alive. She was one of the only ones who was nice to me…apart from you, of course. But then again, you've always been."

Bella nodded, feeling immensely guilty for even contemplating for a moment that Angela could have been the one to do it. True, there were a lot of clues that pointed in the maid's direction but still; she should have trusted her gut instinct. That same instinct that had told her to comfort the poor girl grieving for her dead employer.

She should have known better.

"Let's hope the men get there in time," she wished out loud. "Mrs. Cope hit you with her rolling pin?"

Rose nodded as both women turned their attention to Esme and what little things they could do to ease the poor woman's suffering. "We were just loading up the last of the stuff we wanted to take to the kitchen when we heard the gun fire. Jasper took off and I went ahead of Mrs. Cope with some of our load while Angela stayed behind to get some medicine. When we made it back to the sitting room, that bitch struck me just as I was setting some of the food I was carrying down on the table."

"Shit," Bella cursed.

"My sentiments exactly," Rose nodded angrily, her face softening as she looked to her side. "Esme…is she dead?'

Bella shook her head. "Carlisle is, though. They were poisoned. I don't know what I can do to ease her suffering…if there is anything that can even be done, at this point."

"Well, damn," Rose's face clouded again. "Seems like that bitch thought of everything." Pausing a moment, Rose shifted, her body getting stronger again with every minute. "Why do you think she's after us? Do you think it has anything to do with the past?"

Bella took a few minutes to ponder Rose's question. "It almost has to, doesn't it?" she finally concluded. "Unless Mrs. Cope is some homicidal maniac who gets off on killing random people—which I doubt—it's all too coincidental that she just snaps and goes on a killing spree on the one weekend we're all here."

"Then why is she doing this?" Rose wondered, her eyes pained as they kept shooting to Esme. "Somehow I doubt she's just holding a grudge because she paid good money for a poor performance of Shakespeare's play. But why target us? Why _this_ particular cast?" She paused, as both women individually ran through those intense months. "Do you think it has something to do with—?"

"It's the only thing that springs to mind," Bella mused, "but then again… _how_?"

"It's easy to see how someone would hold a grudge over the way things went with him," Rose answered, groaning as the pain in her head intensified with every painful memory she recalled. "I mean…you were nice to him and all, but I don't think any one of the rest of us ever said a kind word to the poor guy."

"But he grew up in an orphanage, remember?" Bella argued, racking her brain as she tried to remember what else she had learned about poor Mike. The thing was, though, that it had all happened an awfully long time ago.

"I wouldn't know," Rose spoke, her voice laced with guilt. "I was one of those people who only spoke to him to put him down, remember?"

Bella smiled compassionately, though her indignation over the way the rest of the crew had treated Mike spiked anew as she thought about it. "He told me once that the stage was the only home he'd ever had," she recalled. "I think I remember that his parents died when he was just a little kid and that there was no other family that could take him in…no brothers and sisters. _No one_."

"And then we went and ruined the one safe place he had," Rose muttered. "If there's one thing this weekend has taught me it's that being a bitch will get you nowhere."

Bella chuckled bitterly, remembering all the times she had been on the receiving end of Rosalie's bitchiness. "You seem to have done a complete one-eighty, then!"

Rose sighed. "Do you know that the past twelve hours have been the first in my life where I've actually been able to breathe freely?" When Bella shook her head, she explained, "As soon as he saw my pretty little face, my dad had been looking for ways to make money off it. And Emmett…he just wanted me because I didn't want him—the thrill of the chase and all that, I suppose. As soon as he had me, all he became interested in was trying to break me." She huffed, her bottom lip wavering for the slightest bit of a moment. "Are you surprised that made me just a tad bitter?"

Bella couldn't say she was. "It's just strange that you and Emmett were married for so long and yet…"

"I'm being as cold and callous about it as I usually am about everything else?" Rose finished, rubbing the bump on her head as she sat up a little straighter, her free hand taking over the damp cloth Bella was using to dab Esme's clammy forehead with. "I hated him, I guess it's as plain and simple as that."

"I know you never wanted to marry him," Bella offered.

"That's right!" Rose snorted bitterly. "My father saw the Golden Boy in Emmett that he'd so wanted to father himself. Convinced as he was that Emmett was going to make it big, that _both_ of us were going to be the next golden couple in Hollywood, he was determined to get us hitched…even if it meant standing by and letting Emmett force me into wedlock."

Bella nodded, understanding what Rosalie wasn't saying to her. "You were pregnant when you got married, weren't you?" She remembered having heard something about that from her father when he came to her wedding, a couple of months after Bella had escaped New York.

Rosalie nodded. "It was the only reason I agreed to marry him. It was either that or be labeled a harlot for the rest of my life."

"But the baby…"

"He was stillborn…my little boy…he was dead in my arms." Rose's tears, which had been close all along, spilled freely. "It's why I never wanted to move from Rochester. I couldn't leave my little boy behind." Huffing, she continued, "Of course, Emmett couldn't wait to leave. He'd been swindled with tales of fortune by my dad, only to find out we had as little money as he did. So now he was stuck in a town that barely offered any shots for actors and with a wife who hated his guts and refused to allow him to sell what little jewelry her mom had left her to facilitate a move."

Bella sighed, her heart hurting for the woman sitting in front of her. "Rose…"

"In the end, we were left with nothing but our hatred for one another," Rose finished her sad tale. "So I know it sounds cold and I know it probably makes me a bad person but, no, I do not mourn the loss of my husband."

Though Bella said nothing, in that moment she could fully understand Rose. Where she'd had difficulties facing the different expectations her dad and herself had of what her life should entail, her own struggles were nothing compared to the loveless life Rose had known. Was it strange that it had left her unable to connect with another person on a friendly level? It was clear that Rosalie McCarty did feel affection, deep down underneath it all. Time and trials had just made it harder for her to connect with the softer side of herself.

Right then, a shot startled both women; Bella's heart skipping beats in time with the pops that sounded below their feet.

 _Pang._

 _Pang. Pang._

 _Pang._

Then…silence.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **3:30 PM**_

It was with a heavy heart that Edward pulled the sitting room door shut behind him and only when he was absolutely certain that Bella was safely locked in behind it that he dared to move.

"I think we'd best start off in the kitchen," Jasper offered, "since that was where everyone was when I left them behind."

"How do you think Rosalie ended up in the sitting room?" Edward asked, walking away from the door with heavy boots.

"I don't know," Jasper was quick to answer. "She probably went on ahead, which was when the killer saw an opening to get rid of her."

"Do you think they believes she's dead?" Edward wondered, frowning as he recalled the scene they'd encountered in the sitting room. "Because somehow I don't think a quick blow to the head was ever going to do the trick."

"No," Jasper agreed. "Not unless you're a champion at knowing just the right spot to deliver it." He paused, turning around to assess the distance from the sitting room to the door leading down into the kitchen and the rest of the servant's realm. "I think the killer meant to knock her out long enough to set up for something else."

"So we're pretty much walking into a trap here." Edward sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Great!"

"Then we'd best keep our minds sharp and our pistols cocked," Jasper concluded as his hand wrapped around the door leading downstairs.

The darkness was as eerie as the dead slice that greeted them; their footsteps heavy and hollow as they carefully made their way down the stairs.

"I never realized just how damn creepy this place is," Jasper remarked as the bottom of the stairs revealed a long corridor, lit only by a faint light streaming in from a faraway window. "What the hell was Carlisle thinking, leaving New York and the civilized world behind to live in a place like this?"

"After everything that happened?" Edward challenged. "I think he would have lived in a cowshed as long as it was far enough away from the 'civilized' world."

Both men fell quiet as they recalled what little they remembered from those days when Carlisle had fallen hard and fast from the pedestal that the New York cultural elite had placed him on.

"It was pretty brutal," Jasper finally broke the silence as both of them stopped, their eyes scanning the seemingly empty space for signs of trouble. "But then again, Broadway is a pretty brutal place. When you're up, you can do no wrong. People treat you like a king and doors are opened that you never dreamed of even peeking behind. When you're down, though…" Jasper whistled, his face clouding over. "Let's just say I'm glad I never experienced it but I've seen just how cruel people can get. And I'm not just talking the hoity-toity crowd in the box seats. The people on the stage and behind the scenes are as bad as anyone else!" He let out a dark chuckled, filled with self-loathing. "But I guess we've seen and done more than enough to know that, huh?"

"Why are you still one of them, then?" Edward wanted to know. "You could have made the crossover to Hollywood a million times. I'm sure you had as many offers as the rest of us."

"Movies? That's not how I want to live, man!" Jasper made a dismissive gesture. "No offense but there's no artistry in getting to redo a scene if take one doesn't work out. On stage, you have to be on the mark every single moment you perform. I need that buzz to keep things interesting. Besides, I'm sure Hollywood had its fair share of jealous, vindictive people, as well."

"I hear what you're saying," Edward nodded as he kept a sharp eye on his surroundings. "I just kind of like the fact that when a movie is wrapped, you know it's going to be the best possible portrayal of the story the audience can get. And, yeah, I think there's artistry in that, in the way you play with the staging and cinematography and production…"

Just then, a loud bang came from beneath their feet, followed by an ear-piercing, hollow scream muffled as a door slammed shut.

Angela.

"I guess that's our cue to spring into action," Edward spoke, his heart pounding as adrenaline started to course through his body. Knowing a woman was in pain and peril and he was within reach of saving her, his feet were buzzing with impatience to get a move on.

"Hold on there, cowboy!" Jasper pulled him back. "I'm not about to run in there like a chicken with its head cut off and get blown to pieces in the process. We've got to strategize before we go down there."

"But there's a woman dying!" Edward snarled. "Excuse me if I don't want to stand out here and discuss tactics while she's at the hands of some psychopath!"

"I'm not talking about writing a sequel to _The Art of War_!" Jasper huffed. "All I want is to decide who takes point and maybe discuss whether or not to wear shoes."

"Right!" Edward's tense posture relaxed a bit as he toed-off his brogues. "That's actually smart thinking. How about I take point and you bring up the rear?"

Jasper nodded, both of them quiet as they started to move towards the kitchen. From there, they knew they had access to the basement, one floor below their feet. The point was, from their little trip below earlier that day, they also knew the basement was a maze of rooms leading off ill-lit corridors. And with them knowing next to nothing about its layout and the cook probably knowing it like the back of her hand, they were at a disadvantage.

Because it was clear now, after Angela's ear piercing scream, that Mrs. Cope was topping their suspect list.

"What kind of idiot builds a place like this anyway?" Edward spoke as they crept through the corridor "I don't think even the old English nobility has the kind of staff to run places like this anymore! Let alone on this side of the pond!"

"I think it was some crazy English lord who built this place," Jasper whispered as they lingered in the kitchen doorway, taking in the chaos that people plundering the kitchen cabinets for anything that could be useful in saving their lives had left behind. "His American wife couldn't get used to life on the other side of the Atlantic, so her rich daddy built an exact replica of his son-in-law's castle as a compromise." Breathing out a deep breath, Jasper crept forward, urging Edward to do the same. "Watch out so you don't make a noise."

It was easier said than done. It was clear that Jasper's crew had raided the complete kitchen in some haste; grabbing what they needed and leaving all the rest to be put into place at a later time. When they came closer to the basement door, though, something more sinister joined the clutter of kitchen stuff on the floor.

Blood.

There was a puddle of it right next to one of the kitchen cabinets and then a trail leading from that puddle towards the door. Jasper and Edward shared a look of understanding as they came to the same conclusion: that must have been the spot where Mrs. Cope had surprised poor Angela and somehow overpowered her.

The poor girl was at her mercy in the dark and gloomy world below.

Jasper nodded as Edward took point, carefully studying the slightly open door leading down before he pushed it further open. They both winced as the hinges creaked; not really loud but maybe loud enough to be heard by someone who was paying attention.

" _Let's go!"_ Edward mouthed, his eyes narrowing as they tried to get used to the darkness on the other side of the door.

The lights, never really abundant in the first place, had been cut off to take the place into almost darkness. It would have been pitch black had it not been for the few scattered little windows at the top of the walls, connecting the basement to the world up ahead.

Drawing their guns out in front of them, both men were on high alert as they slowly started to move forward, keeping their backs to the wall and their eyes on what little of their surroundings they could see.

Edward was almost sure that whoever was out there could hear the sound of his heartbeat as it pounded in his ears, his arms trembled slightly from the strain of holding his gun stretched out in front of him.

He was suddenly back in Boulogne, creeping through a moonlit forest that was infected with the Nazi soldiers that wanted him dead. His new enemy was just one woman but, instead of that being a comforting thought, the body count that single woman had amassed was enough to make him fear for his life.

God only knew what she had planned for them.

A tap on his shoulder broke him out of his thoughts as Jasper had discovered a doorway—the first of many, he knew—leading off the corridor.

Both of them took position; Edward to the right, Jasper to the left. As Edward sprung forward, his gun pointed to each of the four corners of the room, Jasper had Edward's back, though he also kept a look out for whatever might have been happening up ahead. And as Edward breathed out a sigh of relief to find the room empty, both men started to realize the magnitude of the danger they were in.

There were too many angles the enemy could be coming from.

Too many things to watch with only two pairs of eyes.

Edward drew in a sharp breath as the small bit of relief he'd felt at finding the room behind door number one empty, vanished with the thought of the enormity of the task that had befallen them.

One room down, many more to go.

They progressed, their anxiety increased with every room they eliminated. They knew they were going about it the right way, doing everything their military training had instilled into their minds. But as they cleared another room or went down another bend, the one question that plagued their mind became stronger.

Would it be enough?

It was only when they'd taken yet another turn, what they thought to be just another hallway, that the answer came slamming into their face.

No.

And as the door slammed shut behind their backs, there were two truths that rung out almost as loudly.

One: They'd walked right into the trap that had been set for them.

And two: They weren't alone.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **4:00 PM**_

"Angela!" Edward gasped, using the feeble light pouring in through the tiniest of windows to reach her.

She was leaning against the wall, her eyes half closed as she appeared to be slipping out of consciousness.

But still alive, thankfully.

It was only when he was almost to her that he slipped, noticing how blood was pouring from two large gashes ripped right across her wrists. It was a slow death…a death meant to lure them in and trap the three of them there.

"You…came." Angela breathed, each word coming out in a labored gasp.

"We couldn't leave you here all alone, now could we?" Edward answered, trying to make his voice sound as light and comforting as he could as he untied his belt and used it to tie off one of her arms. Ripping off a strip of fabric from his shirt, he was quick to stop the bleeding on her other wrist as well.

It was in vain, he knew, as did the poor woman. Too much blood had already been drained from her body.

But at least it was something he could try to save her life.

"I never expected it…to be… _her_ ," Angela went on, her voice slurred as she started to slip out of their world. "I thought… _Esme_."

"She got to them as well," Edward enlightened her. "The soup you gave them had poison in it. Funny enough, we actually thought it was you when we found them."

"Funny…" Angela panted, before her head rolled sideways.

She was gone.

Jasper, meanwhile, had occupied himself with the door and, more importantly, any way it could be opened. So far, he was having no luck. In the end, sheer desperation won out as he drew his gun and fired three quick shots into the unyielding door. The wood must have been thicker and sturdier than they thought, as the damn thing didn't even seem to shake with the force of impact while their ears were popping with the deafening echoes. "Why the hell would Carlisle have a door this sturdy in his damn basement?" Jasper grunted as he pushed his shoulder against the wood in vain. "It's not like he's guarding the bullion depository in here!"

"He must really like his wine, then," Edward grumbled, looking around at the shelves, stocked with rows and rows of bottles. Anything not to look towards the woman slumped at his feet.

"Is she dead yet?" The sound of a disembodied voice coming from the other side of the door shocked both men. Jasper stumbled back from the door as his hand clenched around his gun while Edward sprang to his feet, poised and ready to strike. "Poor little Angela. She never suspected me!"

"Show yourself, you damn bitch!" Jasper snarled at the heavy door.

"No, I don't think I shall," Mrs. Cope spoke coyly. "I think I'll head upstairs first to make sure the grieving widows join their dead husbands on the other side. It's not good for a man to stay alone, even if, in their cases, they would be better off without those stinking whores!"

"Leave them alone!" Edward growled, the door creaking on its hinges as he slammed his body against it with all his force.

"No…I can't do that, I'm afraid." Her laughter chilled Edward and Jasper to the bone. It was evil and malicious and sounded so sinister it would have frightened even the bravest of men. "Now if only they would have left my Michael alone, I might have had mercy on them. But no."

"But Bella never hurt him!" Edward yelled, her words giving him a slight spark of hope. "If you want to get to the ones that hurt him, take me! I must have made a joke out of him a million times a day!" He panted, his fists slamming against the door in despair. "But Bella was always nice to him, even if we weren't. And Esme wasn't even _around_ back then!"

But his words merely echoed into an empty corridor, as footsteps disappeared from behind the wood that kept them prisoners.

"No!" Edward desperately screamed, a sharp sting of pain shooting through his shoulder as he slammed against the door again. "Come back here, you bitch!" His heart was pounding furiously at the thought of Bella, virtually alone and protected only by two locked doors and a bunch of furniture.

If that woman somehow managed to get past those doors or, God forbid, smashed the French doors leading in from the patio, the women would be sitting ducks.

"We have to think of something," he panted as he turned his attention back to Jasper. "We have to get there before she—"

"We need to think, then," Jasper cut him off. "And I don't know about you but for me, thinking goes a hell of a lot better when there aren't people yelling in my ear."

"Well, boo-hoo!" Edward snarled. "Just try and see how well you'd do when the woman you've loved for over a decade is in danger!"

"That's why I've always been careful never to fall into any trap," Jasper snorted. "Whether laid to me by a killer or a woman looking to ensnare me into matrimony. It's kept me alive and relatively sane these past years."

As Edward continued to metaphorically climb the walls like a caged animal, Jasper retreated within himself, tapping his chin as he thought out loud. "So it all seems to be connected to Newton's death somehow. Strange, since I'm pretty damn sure the poor sod killed himself."

Pausing his pacing for a minute, Edward shot him a desperate gaze. "We all are, aren't we?"

Jasper shrugged. "Some of us a little more so than others."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Edward growled. "And just for your information: we don't have time to pussyfoot around with a killer running rampant through this building. Hell, if you don't care about the women, think about what that bitch is going to do to you when she's done upstairs!"

"Hold your horses, man!" Jasper chuckled nervously. "I'm just trying to remember…"

"Well, make haste, then," Edward pressed, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared Jasper down.

The other man let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes before finally explaining himself. "My dressing room was right next to Mike's," he confessed, "so when Bella fainted, I heard her crash onto the floor and ran out to see what was happening."

"Were you the one who called the police?" Edward asked, vainly trying to remember the little details of that night. The truth was, though, that by the time Mike's death had been discovered, he had already been well and truly on his way to drunkenness after realizing earlier that night that in his quest for greatness, he'd destroyed the one thing in his life that had truly given him joy.

Jasper shook his head. "I got Carlisle. There was this stuff Mike had written on his mirror. It was kind of heavy shit so I wanted the old man to have a look at it and see what he wanted done about it."

"You erased it, didn't you?" Edward asked, his voice accusing. "How could you do that? There might have been clues the police could have used!"

"It was nothing, okay!" Jasper defended himself, his voice rising with both guilt and frustration as he thought back. "Just some bullshitting about how he was going to come back from the grave to haunt us." Huffing, he kicked the unyielding door before he added, "In fact: Carlisle erased it to save all of your skins, since Mike's message would have exposed you all as his bullies—me included, by the way." With another deep sigh, he added. "Look, I know what we did was wrong, okay? But even though I don't know the exact words on that damn mirror, I know all of that shit clearly pointed to him killing himself."

"And now Mrs. Cope is out for revenge," Edward concluded, leaning his body against the clammy stone wall as he closed his eyes. "What do you think her connection to him is?"

"If only I knew." Jasper's words lingered in the air as the eyes of both men were drawn back to the slumped figure of Angela Weber.

A web of lies...

A huge web of intrigue and festering resentments had brought them to Belmont. But where the others may have just thought of slitting on another's throat at times, one person had actually made plans to kill them off: one by one.

Until there were none.

It was still hard to imagine how someone apparently as inconspicuous as Mrs. Cope had managed to run rampant through the house as she executed her deadly plan. Though, as Edward reflected on that thought, it may have been that very inconspicuousness that had allowed her to do so.

After all, although he considered himself a rather modern man for his times, he still had a hard time considering a woman able to perform the kind of savage acts that had been committed under Carlisle's roof that weekend.

A woman…

"I've got it!" He suddenly cried, pushing away from the wall as he found his way back to Angela's corpse, crouching beside her body as he gently felt through the woman's hair. "Hairpin!" he announced, holding his trophy up as if he'd just received an academy award.

Jasper chuckled. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"I suppose we were both focused on brute strength instead of good old cunningness," Edward answered, his lips pressed together in sheer determination as he wriggled the little pin inside the lock until a very satisfactory click was heard.

As they ran through the dark corridor, the panic Edward had been feeling all day had not abated; not even slightly. But as his footsteps brought him closer to the stairs, he did feel some hope in the thought that he hadn't heard any shots being fired…nor any screams.

Which meant that he might still be able to save his Bella.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Saturday, March 17, 1951**_

 _ **5 PM**_

Meanwhile, upstairs in the sitting room, the shots startled both women. Rose's eyes grew huge as they settled upon Bella's frightened gaze. "Do you think…?"

"There's no use in _thinking_ ," Bella replied sharply, trying to settle the waves of panic that flashed through her like lightning bolts. "We'd do better to act." Finding her strength, she balled her hands into fists by her side, drawing mental strength from that fake physical gesture. "Whatever happened down there, the chances are that in a few minutes the person that's trying to kill us might be standing right outside that door." Pointing towards the door, she could feel her panic give way to anger—hot, burning fury directed at the person who was trying to keep Bella from ever seeing her son again. "And I don't know about you, but I want to make damn sure whoever is out there, won't be coming in."

"Right." Rose nodded as she tried to mimic Bella's confidence but only succeeding in part. "What do you want me to do?"

"Barricade everything," Bella pressed. "Doors, windows, mouse holes…every entrance to this room, no matter how small. We don't know what's been planned." Even though Bella had been careful not to put a name to the so far faceless killer at large, deep down inside she had a very hard time picturing Angela as the guilty party. After all, she'd spent a night sleeping almost next to the whimpering maid, that first night after Alice had died.

If Angela had indeed been the killer, then why was Bella still alive?

Her mind went back to the previous night as she remembered the fear and grief Angela had shown over the death of her boss. Bella had a hard time believing that the emotions Angela had shown that night had been an act, meant to throw Bella off the scent of who the real killer was. In her time, Bella had seen some pretty convincing performances played out live in front of her eyes by the great actresses of her day and, therefore, she knew that nobody was _that_ good of an actress.

And if she had been, Angela would have undoubtedly made her fortune in Hollywood instead of standing in the wings as she watched Alice take the spotlight.

No, as often as she'd seen Angela pop up right before or after someone had been killed, when it really came down to it, Bella just couldn't marry the Angela she had come to know to the image of a ruthless killer.

It had to be Mrs. Cope.

"Can you help me close them?" Rose gasped as she struggled with the heavy wood of the plantation shutters. "These things are pretty solid!"

"Thankfully, yes," Bella chuckled as she and Rose managed to close off all access from the outside. She went to check on Esme, whose body was still struggling against the effects of the poison the poor woman had ingested. "I don't think we could have barred the windows so well using only the furniture in this room!" Where Bella had admired the huge windows and French doors leading out to the terrace only a day before, right at that moment, they were a huge liability. After all, windows were easy to break; it took only a rock or even a tree branch and the killer would be right up in their faces.

Their relief didn't last long.

As their breaths came down, the faint sound of footsteps drawing closer on the polished wooden flooring made both women's hearts stop.

Rose's eyes were filled with blind fear as she grabbed Bella's hand, their fingers weaving together as they sat completely paralyzed by anxiety.

Putting her finger against her lips to motion Rose to keep quiet, she pointed at Esme, quietly directing the other woman to make sure their sick friend wouldn't make a sound. She herself quietly creeped over to a side table, picking up a solid looking candlestick before taking up her post next to the door.

If the person on the other side managed to get past the locked door and the furniture piled up in front of it, they would have a hell of a headache before they would succeed in putting a finger on Rose, Esme or Bella.

It was certain that it wasn't the men. If it had been them instead of the killer, there would have been two sets of footsteps than just the one. And even if one of them had been forced to stay behind, the other wouldn't have creeped through the entrance hall like a thief in the night. His footsteps would have been hasty and louder than the almost inaudible measured steps slowly trekking through the hall.

Bella's heart was hammering in her chest as she listened; the creaking of the floor against a pair of heeled shoes had never sounded quite as ominous as it did in that moment.

Closer, they came…

Closer still…

Closer…

So close…

Until they stopped.

By that time, her heart was pounding so fast Bella was half convinced the person on the other side of the wall could hear it, her eyes searching and finding Rose's terrified gaze as they waited for the killer to test their defenses.

When the doorknob started to move, twisting first one way and then the other, Bella had to fight not to scream. Not that the killer would be fooled into thinking the room was empty for even a moment.

The rattling of the door handle became more insistent as the person on the other side realized the door was locked.

A thump.

A body throwing itself against the solid wood; testing the strength of their defenses.

But they held…for the time being.

"Come out, come out wherever you are…" the eerie, disembodied voice of Mrs. Cope—because it was undoubtedly her voice they were hearing—sang on the other side. "It's no use trying to hide from me, you silly gooses! I know you're in there…and I'm going to get you."

Frantically shaking her head 'no', Bella managed to keep Rose from shouting out right at the last moment. There were a few choice things she wanted to scream in Mrs. Cope's direction herself but she instinctually knew it was best not to goad the rampant killer.

Pressing her lips together, Bella urged herself to keep calm as Mrs. Cope changed tactics again and went back to using whatever force she possessed to try to break down the door. There was no more control in that voice as it sounded again. "Did that bitch survive my special soup?" she cackled, obviously finding something very funny about her own hideous acts. "If only she wouldn't have come into the kitchen that night, she might have made it out of this place alive. Well, probably not, but I would have felt bad about killing her, I think. And I might have thought of some other way to kill that rat bastard of a husband of hers."

Bella gasped, immediately clamping both hands over her mouth. _Husband?_

"Oh, yes, didn't you know?" Mrs. Cope cackled with glee on the other side of the door. "They married as soon as Carlisle's private investigator found out that poor little Esme's runaway husband had walked into a the wrong end of a knife during a drunken bar fight. They got the Justice of the Peace to make the trip out here and were married out on the patio. It was supposed to be hushed up until he died and she could claim his plush little inheritance but…well, I think their secret's safe with you, since I don't think you'll be leaving this island alive. But then again…neither will she!"

Thinking back about what Carlisle had said about wanting to provide Esme with the comforts and security she'd been missing all her life, Bella could understand why they did it. Even if she felt a little hurt that Carlisle, whom she considered a friend and an almost a father figure, had not told her.

"But then Esme came into the kitchen and…I guess I just couldn't be sure of what she'd seen, even if she kept her trap shut until I filled it up for her!" There was a pause, almost as if the madwoman grieved having to kill someone who might not have been on her hit list. "Oh well, just the thought of having them all drop like flies—those bastards who thought themselves so high and mighty that they could squash a poor, sweet soul—I wish I could have been there to see it!"

Chills ran down Bella's spine as she realized just how slim her chances of survival were. Sure, she and Rose were relatively safely ensconced in the living room with enough supplies to last a couple of days if they had to. But what would happen then?

The boat would return at noon the next day to pick them up, but would they be able to meet him on the dock? Or even warn him about the madwoman? Bella had no doubt that Mrs. Cope would kill the minute she saw him, and then destroy the only chance they had at making it back to the shore.

Or she'd simply slip away, leaving them all dead on the island.

Who would find them?

Just then, a noise sounded from somewhere inside the house, loud enough to be heard even behind the closed sitting room door, but not so close that Bella could pinpoint its location.

Edward.

"Oh, well, as nice as our little chat has been, I think it's time to go!" Mrs. Cope announced in a remarkably chipper voice. "Catch you girls later!"

Quiet.

The silence that followed Mrs. Cope's departure felt too heavy to leave any feelings of relief. Even though both women felt they had just had a very close call, Mrs. Cope could be back at any moment.

They couldn't let their defenses slip.

Not even for a second.

As the peace endured, though, both Bella and Rose dared to draw some much needed deep breaths again, though; shoulders sagging as some of the tension slipped away and small smiles appearing as they realized they were safe.

For the time being.

"Bella?"

Both women jumped at the sound of a frantic voice on the other side of the door. It lasted only a second that time, though, as the voice sounded nothing like the scary, high pitched growl of Mrs. Cope.

No, it sounded like salvation.

"Can you open the door for me?" Edward called out, Bella holding Rose back as she already started clawing desperately at the furniture in front of the door until Edward confirmed the coast was clear, as they originally planned. "Jasper and Edward would like to come in."

It was only when she had the confirmation that all was clear that Bella released Rose and both women started to frantically breaking down their barricade.

They were safe.

For the time being.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Sunday, March 18, 1951**_

 _ **7 PM**_

"Edward!" Bella breathed, crying tears of joy and relief as she fell into his arms.

"It's okay, my love," Edward muttered into her hair, her warm scent chasing some of the horrors he'd encountered away. "It's going to be okay."

"But…you're bleeding," Bella, who only then noticed the bloodstains on his clothes, stammered. "You're hurt!"

Edward merely shook his head, his eyes full of sorrow as he tried to speak, but the words wouldn't pass his lips. His throat was too thick with grief over the innocent young woman who'd bled out beside him.

"That bitch killed Angela," Jasper spoke, unhindered by the very sentiments that had rendered his friend speechless. "It was a trap set up to divide us and kill us off one at a time."

Bella gasped, her frightened eyes finding Edward's sad ones.

"Well, we can't say she didn't try," Rose muttered, checking for the third time that the door was back to its secured state. "In fact, the two of you just missed her."

"She was here?" Pushing back a little, Edward's eyes searched Bella's for the truth. When she nodded, he went on, "What did she do?"

"She tried to get in through the door. When she found out it wouldn't budge, she tried to goad us to open it." Bella shivered as the memories of that cold, evil voice drifted back into her mind. "She's really crazy… _disturbed_. I think if the two of you wouldn't have showed up when you did, she would have made another attempt to get around our defenses."

Edward nodded, his control slowly returning with the realization that the 'game' wasn't over yet. "We had a little chat with her ourselves. It seems she's somehow connected to Mike Newton."

"So what do you guys think she is?" Rose chimed in. "A sister?"

"Too old, I think." Jasper spoke, dismissing her suggestion. "Maybe an aunt or a family friend or something similar. His parents both died, didn't they?"

"I think so," Rose pondered, her attention going back to Esme, whom Rose had devoted herself to care for.

"Yes," Bella confirmed. Out of the entire cast and crew that had staged the production back in the day, she had been the only one to bother getting to know the shy, out of place boy. "They both died in a car crash when he was young. He didn't have any other relatives…he had no one."

"He must have had _some_ sort of connection to her," Jasper insisted. "It's not like someone reads about his death in a newspaper and then just decides to go on a killing spree on his behalf. She knew things…"

"You mean she knew how you and Emmett tormented him to the brink of insanity?" Bella snapped. "Or have you forgotten what drove Mike to his drastic act?"

"I was only trying to build his character," Jasper defended himself, his tone of voice leaving no doubt that he actually believed his own words. "I know now that what I did was wrong and…and looking back on it, I can only be ashamed of what I was doing, but…"

"But?" Bella demanded, stepping out of Edward's hold as she challenged her former cast mate like she knew she should have done ten years earlier.

"Look, Bella, as stupid as it may seem, I thought I was doing a good thing." Jasper paused, running his hand through his longish hair before he continued, "Anyone could have seen from a mile away that Mike didn't belong on Broadway. He was a great actor with bags of potential. I mean, he could crawl into a fictional person's skin better than any one of us could but, when it came to his personality, he was too feeble and shy to hold his own against the cutthroat world of the stage. I thought…" Jasper sighed, looking Bella straight in the eye with a look that combined remorse with conviction. "I thought the sooner he realized that, the happier it would make him in the end."

"Only it didn't," Rose added, sighing as she took a moment to ponder her own share in what happened to poor Mike. "We were all young and stupid back then—not that it's any excuse for what we did."

Bella smiled sadly as she thought back on the few moments she'd spent with young Mike. "We all failed him."

"Yeah, that's all fine and dandy but who the hell is after us now?" Jasper spoke up, his remorse obviously short-lived. "If it's not a parent or a sister, then how did she know him?"

"You could always ask her," Rose sneered sarcastically. "When she left us just now, she pretty much promised to be back, and Bella and I can testify to the fact that she has no problem whatsoever answering questions. In fact, she's a regular chatterbox."

"How's Esme doing?" Taking his eyes off Bella for the first time since he'd stepped into the room, Edward diverted his attention to the suffering woman.

"She's a little better," Rose answered, her hand brushing over Esme's clammy forehead as the woman herself groaned faintly. "A little calmer, though I fear she's still in pain. I wish there was more we could do for her."

"We can get her through this," Edward offered. "We take care of her for as long as it takes and then get her the care she should have had from the beginning, had it not been for that vile woman!"

"Amen!" Rose muttered, her attention back on Esme as she pressed a wet cloth to her forehead. Deep down inside, Rose doubted whether or not she would ever see another morning again. Sure, they were safe inside the room they were in, but for how long? Being a longstanding servant at Belmont, Mrs. Cope probably knew every single nook and cranny of the house and Rose would have bet she had a set of keys, as well.

And even if they somehow managed to keep that madwoman out of the room, there was still the pesky little matter of having to get to the dock the next morning before Mrs. Cope managed to slaughter all of them and the boatman, too.

And just when her life was finally looking up…

Part of Rose knew she should probably have felt more grief at the loss of her husband—the man who still lay upstairs in his bedroom with a knife sticking out of his chest. Still, the years during which she had been tied to him offered her no good memories at all to feed her mourning. Instead, his constant cruelty and the humiliation at having to endure his mistresses walking in and out of her house as if she didn't even live there made her feel like the chains that had tied her to a prison of unhappiness had finally been broken.

She was free.

Free to pursue a life she had been dreaming of for so long.

Free to fall in love with a man who inspired and cherished her.

Free to live her own life and be her own source of happiness.

But would she ever get to live that life?

Would she even outlive her hated husband for more than a day?

Sighing to herself, Rose got back to the task she had put upon herself. At least in focusing on another human being, she had managed to keep the blind panic at bay.

"So what do we do now?" Jasper asked, his eyes scanning the room for weaknesses in their defenses. He had to admit that the women had done an outstanding job in barricading the doors and windows. The night would prove whether or not their defenses would hold up.

"We wait out the storm, I guess," Edward offered, sitting down next to Bella. "And I suppose we should try to come up with some sort of plan for tomorrow."

Jasper nodded as he fell into a plush looking armchair that was pushed up against the door as a barricade. He needed to think; get his head around everything that had happened and everything that was probably going to happen. But the long and strenuous hours awake had taken a toll on his brain and his mind was spinning. "I think we'd do better to try and get some rest before we make any attempts at coming up with a plan. We need our wits about us. Can you take the first watch while I get some shut-eye?" When Edward nodded, his eyes fell shut as he felt himself being pulled under. "Wake me in a couple of hours?" he managed to get out before dropping into a deep, black sleep.

Meanwhile, Edward and Bella had settled in on the sofa; their whispers hushed as the lamp-lit room around them became quieter and quieter. "What are you going to do when you get home?" Edward asked, keeping his mind active as a way of keeping sleep at bay.

Bella smiled, knowing the double purpose his words served. "The first thing I'm going to do is hug my son. Then, I'll take a long, hot bath to wash the stink of this island away."

"Sounds great," Edward muttered, his eyes faraway as he stared off into an invisible distance.

"What about you?" Bella wanted to know, toeing off her shoes as she pulled her legs underneath her body.

Shrugging, Edward let out a deep sigh. "A bath sounds nice…"

"You don't have anyone to go home to?" Bella wondered. She knew that he didn't have a significant other waiting for him but she did hope there was _someone_.

Edward shrugged, his loneliness so common to him that he didn't feel the same sentiments that tore at Bella's heart. "Not unless you count my money-hungry agent or the woman who comes to clean my house three times a week."

"You should come with me!" Bella had blurted it out before she could check herself, though after she'd recovered from the shock of spontaneously opening her home to a man she should have been much more wary of, she realized it actually felt right. Still, she blushed as she hurried to tone down the offer a little, even if just for propriety's sake. "It's not as scandalous an offer as it sounds. I mean, not to brag or anything, but my home is big enough to get lost in, and with all the staff running around we'd hardly ever be alone. Not to mention my former mother in law…" Inwardly, Bella cringed at the thought of what that mighty dragon was going to say if Bella showed up with a man in tow. Then again, Bella had never been able to put a single foot right in the eyes of the magnificent Mrs. Black no matter how hard she tried. It was about time she gave the old battle axe something to really sink her teeth in.

"Are you sure you wouldn't mind?" Edward asked, both humbled and honored by her kind offer. "I don't want to put you out and…and your son?"

Bella sighed, choosing her words carefully as she opened her heart along with her home. "Yesterday evening, you made me a promise. If you truly meant what you said, it's inevitable that at some point you're going to meet my son…my Jake. I just hope…" She let out a huge breath, averting her eyes towards some distant point beyond the room. "If there is any doubt in your mind about me or about a long-term future plan, then don't come with me. Because if you hurt my son in any way, I'll never forgive you."

"I'm sure." Grabbing her hand, Edward forced her eyes back on his. "I won't let you down. If you're really sure about give us another try, letting me prove I've loved you all along, even when my despicable actions spoke otherwise. I'm not saying I won't mess up along the way, though. I mean, I've never been in a serious relationship or even been around kids for a longer period of time. But I am saying that I'll try my best."

Pulling her into a hug, he let the warmth of his touch tell her what he was lacking the words to express to her: how grateful he was to be given another chance.

How determined he was to prove himself as a lover…a _person_.

What he could do then, however, was make her a promise, even if he had no clue as to how he was going to keep it. "I'll get us out of here, love. As long as there's a breath in my body, I'll make sure we get off this island alive."

Little did he know just how soon his words would be put to the test.

* * *

 _ **Who's ready for the big finale?**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Sunday, March, 1951**_

 _ **6:45 PM**_

That night was a night of horrors.

As the survivors settled in for the night, sleeping in shifts, Mrs. Cope was plotting her _pièce de resistance_. The first act in the _danse macabre_ they found themselves in was the reappearance of Jessica, though it wasn't in any way the five people ensconced in the sitting room had been hoping to see her again.

There was an awful noise—a terrible shriek coming from outside—just as the clock had struck midnight.

They had known immediately who had been caught.

It was a woman; a woman in mortal peril, unable to utter an intelligible word for unknown reasons but still determined to call for aide.

Even when she knew how unlikely it was that help would come.

"Isn't anyone going to save the poor maid before I string her up from the cherry tree?" Mrs. Cope's shrill voice sounded from the darkness.

Jasper intervened before anyone could make a sound or disturb the shutters that had kept the undoubtedly grisly scene hidden from their eyes. "Don't let her get to you," he warned Bella, who had already been making a dash for the blinded windows. "It's exactly what she wants. She needs to see us weak and divided so the chance one of us messes up and creates an opening into the room. At this moment, there's nothing she would love more than for you to open the blinds so she can force her way in." He sighed, cringing as another heartbreaking cry for help pierced through the silence. "Don't give her what she wants, Bella, even though we all desperately want to help that poor girl."

Bella nodded, blindly reaching for Edward's hand as she sat back down again. "It just seems so…so _horrible_ ," she said, lacking better words to describe the utter devastation she felt, knowing someone was being murdered outside the window but being unable to do anything about it. "I wish there was something we could do."

"The only thing we can do is stand firm and make it out of here alive to bring her to justice," Edward said, as the silence outside the window settled heavily in their hearts as they knew Jessica's struggle to live had ended. "And about getting out of here..."

"We need a plan." Jasper nodded as he finished Edward's sentence.

"Like we never needed one before," Edward added as the two men stuck their heads together.

Where Bella was content to sit out the scheming and leaving their 'war strategy' to those who had actually seen some action in their day, the men were surprised to find a third head joining their group.

"What?" Rose snapped. "Saving the day is a strictly for men? I think if that bitch outside considers herself emancipated enough to elevate herself to the part of villain, then the heroes should have a woman in their midst as well, if only just to even things out a little."

The men didn't have anything to say against that and so, as the three of them strategized over possible plans, Bella took over the care of Esme. Unlike Rosalie, she had no desire to enter into the fray. Call it cowardice or not, but fighting had ever been Bella's forte. She was great at supporting those who did or she tried to settle things in a more peaceful manner but she knew her own strengths and—more importantly—her weaknesses.

And courage had never been one of her qualities.

Poor Esme was doing a little better, if outward signs were to be believed at least. The violent thrashing and moaning had stopped and she appeared to be calm and beyond pain. Whether that was a good or a bad sign, remained to be seen. Bella, though, was determined to remain optimistic; the slight color in Esme's cheeks and the even, relaxed breathing gave her hope as she made sure her patient had everything she could provide her with in this far from ideal setting.

"How is she?" Rose asked, leaning over Bella's shoulder.

Bella sighed. "I think she's a little better. She may yet pull through this."

"Let's hope so." Rose's smile was less than convincing. After having seen Esme at her worst, even Rose had to admit that the woman did look a little better. But to believe that someone could make it back from being so very, very sick from poisoning without the aid of a doctor or a hospital, was hard for Rose to grasp.

"And how are things going with you?" Bella asked, sitting back as she dipped the cloth she was using to wipe Esme's forehead into a bowl of cold water. "Any plans, yet?"

"I think we've got something," Rose announced proudly. "Well, it's not that much of a plan but it's the best we could do, really."

As the men already set to work, Rose clued Bella in on what the three of them had come up with. Leaning very heavily on Jasper's surprisingly extensive military knowledge, the men were already at work making a flag out of a white tablecloth and a red pillowcase. Using some of the knives that Jasper, Rose and Angela had brought in from the kitchen, they cut a checkerboard pattern out of the pillowcase and fastened it to the white tablecloth with drippings of candlewax and the women's hairpins. In the end, it was nothing but a poor rendition of the US Navy signal 'Uniform' which, according to Jasper, would clue any seaman who'd served time in the war in on the fact that he was running into danger.

That was, if the boatman or whoever would be close enough to see it, knew their naval signals.

A little before they expected the boat to arrive at the island dock, Rose and Jasper would head up with one of the two guns to hoist the from the flag mast perched on top of the castle tower. In the meantime, Edward and Bella would use the other gun to hold the dock in case Mrs. Cope decided not to follow Rose and Jasper. If the boatman didn't heed their warning, Edward and Bella would have the task of shouting warnings while keeping the madwoman at bay.

Because, if Mrs. Cope managed to get her hands on either to boatman or the boat, they'd all be lost.

"I won't let anything happen to you," Edward assured Bella with a determination that they both knew depended on so much more than the strength of one man. There were no guarantees in this game of life and death.

"I know you won't," Bella confirmed with a certainty she knew was based on nothing. What she did know, though, was that she was as safe by Edward's side as she was ever going to be.

"So let's hope that boatman knows his signals or we're screwed," Jasper concluded as the light of the rising sun started to poor through the cracks in the blinds.

They'd made it to another morning.

Maybe the last one they were going to see.

Or maybe not.

"So when is this whole plan going to be set into motion?" Bella wanted to know after they'd all sat in a long, unbearable silence for God only knew how long. She wanted to know if she had time to prepare; perhaps write a final letter to her son should…should the worst happen.

"The boat was supposed to take us back after breakfast," Jasper offered, "and from what I gathered breakfast is usually served around ten in the morning." He paused tapping his lip as he paced the room like a general planning his next advance. "Taking into account that the boat will probably have provisions on board that he wants to unload and—from what I can tell after meeting him on our journey here—would very much like a cup of tea and whatever goodies are on offer in the kitchen, I'm thinking he'd probably be here somewhere around the start of breakfast."

"Which would give us about an hour or so before show time," Rosalie concluded, looking at the Louis XVI clock perched on the mantelpiece. "Just enough time to do a final run-through."

Before they knew it, it was close to ten in the morning and they were waiting by the door, armed and dangerous. "It would have been one hell of a convenience if we knew where that bitch was hiding," Edward grumbled under his breath as they slid the final side table of their barricade away from the door.

Jasper shrugged, cocking his gun as he waited by the door. "We're going to run into her one way or another." Turning to Rose, who stood by his side, armed with a candlestick, he asked. "Do you have it?"

Rose nodded, producing the makeshift signaling flag and tying it around her neck. "Let's get this show on the road. Edward and Bella, are you ready?"

Edward nodded, his arm wrapped firmly around his beloved as they got into position. They would exit through the terrace where they would hide out by the front door. It was the perfect spot to keep a firm eye on the dock while also staying out of sight from the main house.

"Do you think she'll come for us?" Bella asked, her back pressed firmly against the outer wall of Belmont Castle. Above them was the front door, the solid stone stairs and ornate balustrade leading up to the entrance hid the two of them from view. Her hands were trembling, her eyes flittering from the shoreline to the door right next to her.

Anywhere, but at the ghastly sight to her other side.

It shouldn't have been a shock to see Jessica's body blowing in the early morning breeze as she hung from the braches of a large tree. After all, there had been so many deaths on the island that Bella almost felt she'd have grown accustomed to it.

She didn't, though.

And she never would.

"I'm almost certain of it," Edward confirmed her fears with a grim voice, his gun held ready and his eyes alert as he checked their surroundings. "She can't run the risk of one of us leaving this island, not only because we'd alert the authorities but also because it would mean her plans of killing us all have failed."

"Do you think Esme's safe inside?" Bella wondered out loud, her heart breaking at the thought of leaving that poor, deathly ill woman behind.

"She's as safe as any of us," Edward answered with a deep sigh. "We locked the terrace doors behind us and Rose and Jasper made sure to lock the door behind them as well when they left for the tower room. "Besides, I don't think Esme will be Mrs. Cope's top priority right now. After all, she already has her incapacitated and completely at her mercy, whereas we are still very much alive and kicking."

"And quite determined to stay that way," Bella muttered, clutching the candlestick she'd grabbed from Carlisle's living room close to her body. It wasn't much in the way of a weapon, especially not against a determined serial killer, but at least it was _something_.

Trying to keep calm, she thought about Jasper and Rose. If everything had gone according to plan, they would have reached the top of the tower and hoisted their flag by now. But then again, the fact that Mrs. Cope was still inside the castle—as far as they knew—might speak volumes of the troubles the other two had encountered on their mission.

Were they still alive?

Had they succeeded?

Bella knew she only had to take a few steps forward in order to see the flag posted on top of the tower. But doing so would put her and Edward at risk.

But then again, how much more danger could she be in?

"There!" Edward whisper-yelled, his finger pointing at a tiny blip moving towards them.

The boat!

Bella's heart leapt both in happiness and in fear as she saw the tiny dot come closer. She knew it was their only means of salvation but she also knew that it would mean that as the boat got closer to the dock, so would Mrs. Cope.

"My, my, what do we have here?" The shrill voice of her nightmares sounded beside them as Mrs. Cope's black, killer eyes peeked over the balustrade above. As quick as she'd appeared, her face was gone again, too quick for Edward to get a decent shot. "It's boy wonder and his little bitch!"

Edward didn't respond, knowing her evil words were only meant to goad him into an enraged reaction. Even though inside he was boiling with pure rage, he knew everything depended on him keeping a calm mind. "Bella, get back inside," he ordered in a whisper, his voice calm and controlled as he kept his eyes on the slowly descending figure of the cook. "The boat is almost here and I'm going to make a run for it."

Bella nodded, tears clouding her eyes. She knew that between her skirt and her dainty, feminine footwear, she didn't stand a chance of keeping up with him. "What can I do?" she whispered.

Handing her the key to the terrace door, Edward spoke quick and clear. "Go in through the terrace door, lock it behind you and try to find Jasper and Rose." Not stopping to think about it for a moment, Edward pulled Bella into a desperate searing kiss that left the both of them reeling and breathless. "Now hurry!"

Bella nodded, Edward's heart beating a little easier as he saw her run towards the terrace doors as above him, the footsteps of Mrs. Cope descending the great stone staircase grew nearer. At least if he didn't make it off the island alive, he would have to make sure Bella did.

He would fight until his dying breath to keep her safe.

Anything to make sure her son wouldn't grow up without his mother's love.

 _Okay_. Drawing in one long, strengthening breath, Edward set off into a sprint; running like he'd never run before in his life as he raced towards the end of the jetty. He used to be quite a runner but time and his luxury Hollywood life had taken their toll and soon he could hear the sound of footsteps behind him.

Gaining fast.

Turning around, he fired off a shot in the general direction, his pace quickening as he kept his eyes firmly on his destination.

Shouting, he ran on, trying to attract the attention of the boatman if his shot hadn't done the trick.

And the footsteps were still gaining on him.

"Do you think you can outrun me?" A panted hiss sounded from behind him as a blow to his back made him fall forward.

Hard unto the wood.

A sharp pain penetrated his stomach as he looked up into the crazy eyes of a madwoman.

 _No._

 _She can't win._

 _It can't end like this._

 _If I die, then so will she!_

He could feel the blood gushing from his wound as another stab tore red hot through his body. But with all the strength he still had left in him, he managed to lift his arm, making great use of the fact that Mrs. Cope was too distracted killing him to notice.

"I might not…be able to…outrun you," he managed to pant, as the forces of life started to leave him. "But I will always outgun you… _bitch_!"

With the final piece of strength he had left, he pulled the trigger and fired a shot right through her head.

Mrs. Cope's body fell limply to the side.

If he had expected silence—the calm after the storm—the almighty ruckus breaking out all around him did nothing to pull him back as his gun hand fell back down with a low thud onto the wood as his eyes took in the deep blue sky.

Before it all turned black.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

* * *

 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

* * *

 _ **Rosslyn Harbor, Maine**_

 _ **Monday, March 19, 1951**_

 _ **11 AM**_

Heaven looked a lot different than Edward had imagined.

Not that he'd actually spent a whole lot of time pondering the afterlife or anything. When he came to his senses, the first things he became aware of were the sheets tucked tightly around his body and the stark white ceiling that was slowly becoming visible as his watery eyes opened.

 _Strange_.

"Edward?" There was no denying that the first voice he heard definitely belonged to an angel, though.

 _His_ angel.

"Edward, can you hear me?" Her sweet voice whispered.

He fought against the strain of something trying to pull him back to sleep; the light so bright it was almost painful to behold as he struggled to open his eyes. "W-where…" he managed to croak as his eyes lost their fight against his weakness.

He simply lacked the energy to be conscious of his surroundings _and_ take them in at the same time.

"You're in hospital on Rosslyn Harbor," Isabella's soft voice answered as a cool cloth was pressed against his forehead. "It's been three days since you were brought here. There were times when we didn't think you'd make it."

Thinking very hard—something that took considerable effort—Edward managed to remember his desperate fight with Mrs. Cope; the feeling of steel penetrating his body; the sense of sheer despair, thinking his final hour had struck right at the time when life was starting to look up again.

"The…boatman." His voice sounded feeble, his words barely audible unless someone was hovering as close as propriety allowed.

Like Bella.

"Yes," she whispered, her cool, steady hand enclosing his cheek. "Fortunately for us, it turned out that not only did the boatman have a perfect understanding of naval flag signaling, he also used to be a medic during the war. He managed to stabilize you enough for you to be transported to land."

Edward nodded slightly, his whole being focused on her voice as Bella prattled on. "By then, Rose and Jasper had made it down and between the four of us, we somehow managed to keep you from dying. Esme's in the room next door, by the way. She's doing much better."

Edward smiled, a huge wave of relief settling over him as he allowed sleep to pull him under again.

They were okay.

Well, him, not so much yet, but he could feel he would be with a little time and care.

They had made it.

oOo

It was dark the next time he woke up.

Feeling stronger, he tried to lift himself up to take in his surroundings. Groaning against the pain, he managed to scoot up against his pillows just enough to get a grasp of the room around him. The chair next to his bed was empty but, even though he felt a pang of worry and disappointment at waking up alone, he could hardly expect Bella to remain by his side twenty-four-seven.

It was smallish; the contours of it dimly lit by a single lamp left on to aid the nurses as they did their nightly rounds. In the distance, he could hear the ocean and if he breathed in deep enough, he could almost smell it above the scent of hospital that clung to everything that surrounded him.

Rosslyn Hospital.

Right.

That explained the ocean.

Remembering some of what Bella had told him he lifted his arm, his fingertips exploring the wounds his eyes could barely make out. There was one on his shoulder; a heavy patch of bandages obscuring it from the eye. But the pain it caused was enough to let him know it was deep and angry. Then there was one on his side too; more superficial if the dull ache he felt from it was anything to go by.

On the other side, his stomach was smarting underneath a similar covering as the wound on his arm, and with a sharp sting of pain, he remembered how that had been the wound that had almost done him in.

He was safe.

Breathing in and out, he tried to get his anxiety under control in the same way he'd used when he was in the army.

 _Breathe in._

 _Breathe out._

Visualize the place you wanted to be.

 _Breathe in._

 _Breathe out._

Think of the people you wanted to be there with you.

 _Breathe in._

 _Breathe out._

Try to remember that unique smell of home and love and breathe it in like you were there.

 _Breathe in._

 _Breathe out._

"Ah, you're awake!" Edward was shocked out of his exercise by a nurse coming in to check on him. "My name's Nurse Dawson and I'll be looking after you tonight. How are you feeling, Mr. Masen?"

"Like I've been stabbed to within an inch of my life?" Edward offered, not exactly up to speed with the common practices of hospital etiquette.

The nurse chuckled. "That sounds about accurate. How about we get you back into a horizontal position? You've lost a lot of blood so it's better not to strain yourself too much. You need to give your body every chance it can get to heal again. You were very lucky that madwoman didn't have better aim. Your wounds may be severe but you'll live."

Edward nodded, already feeling the toll of sitting up for even as short an amount of time as he had. "Bella?"

"Your lady friend?" The nurse asked, waiting until he nodded before she explained, "We sent her off a couple of hours ago. Poor thing was running ragged. You know she hasn't left your side for all of the three days you've been in here? When they tried to make her leave after visiting hours, she claimed she'd buy the hospital if we didn't let her stay with you. I think that was the most time she actually spent apart from you. We put a cot in here to allow her to get some rest but I don't think she used it for more than a couple of hours."

Edward sighed. "Sounds like the Bella I know."

"Things caught up with her after you woke up and the Charge Nurse sent her back to her hotel; well, forced her out kicking and screaming is more like it." Nurse Dawson snickered, remembering the quite heated stand-off between her boss and the very determined Mrs. Black. "She's not to enter the hospital before eight this morning, which, before you ask, is another five hours from now."

Edward nodded, feeling his fatigue upon him again.

The nurse, obviously, saw it too as she pulled his blankets up to cover his arms. "Sleep. It will make the time pass that much faster."

oOo

She was back, the next time he woke.

It was afternoon, and he was feeling much stronger than he had the first couple of times he'd woken.

"How are you doing?" she asked, helping him as he struggled to sit up.

He groaned as his stitches strained against the movement but managed to settle onto his pillows in a somewhat comfortable position. "A little better, believe it or not."

"You look a lot better," Bella assessed, handing him a glass of cool water; a drink had never tasted as good. "You have some color in your face again. And, well, you're awake, which is more than could be said for a long time."

"You look good, too," Edward chuckled, noting that Bella did still look tired but not worn out as she had looked, according to the nurse.

"They told you, huh?" Bella smiled wryly, hiding her blush behind the curtain of long, brown hair.

His feelings for her created a heaviness in his chest that wasn't altogether unpleasant. He loved her, even more than he had before, but their weekend was coming to an end, he didn't know what was going to happen between them. "Thanks for sticking by my side. It was more than I could have asked, given how I treated you in the past."

"It was the least I could do after you saved my life," Bella insisted, her eyes wet with tears. "I was so scared we were going to lose you. You were lying there on that jetty and it looked like—"

"Hey." Grabbing her hand, Edward forced her attention away from those painful memories. "We're here now…and we're both safe. But shouldn't you be with your son? I can only imagine how anxious you must be to see him again."

"He's here." Bella smiled the warm grin of a proud mother as she wiped away her tears. "Jake and his nanny are at the hotel right now, but if her accounts are anything to go on, she all but had to chain him to his bed yesterday to stop him from coming to see you. He's quite eager to make your acquaintance, you see."

"As eager as I am to meet _him_ , I guess," Edward replied, unsure but hopeful about the direction their conversation had steered in. "That is…if you still want us to meet. I'll do anything you want!"

"I want…" Bella averted her face, looking out the window as she tried to organize her thoughts. "I'm scared, Edward," she finally admitted, still not daring to look at him. "Right now, my feelings for you are as strong as they were back in the day but, just like I said before: this time around, mine isn't the only heart on the line. And if you hurt my son…" Pressing her lips together, she managed to keep herself from crying as she pressed on, this time looking straight into Edward's deep green eyes. "Before I bring him, I need to be _really_ sure that you aren't going to pull another stunt on me this time…that you're in this for the long haul."

Edward nodded. "You need time."

"I need _some_ time," Bella emphasized, knowing she was only playing with a limited allowance to get her fears under control. Given the state he was in, the hospital was bound to keep Edward for a few more days at least but it wouldn't last indefinitely. All too soon Edward was going to be released from hospital and after the bleak picture he'd pained to what life was like for him in Hollywood, Bella couldn't just let him go back home to loneliness and hired care.

Just then, the arrival of a nurse cut their conversation short. As she took Edward's vitals, she announced that a police officer had just arrived and wished to talk to the two of them. Apparently he had some new information about their case.

The officer, it turned out, was a young rookie who, judging by the star struck look on his face as he gazed adoringly at the patient, was well up to date on his Hollywood productions. The news he brought them, however, was nothing if not baffling.

"She was his _mother_?" Edward gasped as Bella sat speechless next to him.

The police officer nodded. "She had him young…very young, it turns out and conception wasn't very, uh, conventional. She was a kitchen maid in some mansion and her employer had a habit of…" Here, the young officer pulled off his hat, looking apologetically at Bella as he left his audience to fill in the blanks he was both too bashful and gentlemanly to explicate. "Anyway, she put her child up for adoption, which was how Michael Newton came to live with his adoptive parents who, as you probably know, died young and left him an orphan."

Bella nodded, recalling the sad story of poor Mike. "But then how did she know him?"

"From what we've found, she began trying to locate her son about a decade or so ago. Our colleagues up in New York were polite enough to forward us a report in which she stated she was forced to give up her child and in which she demanded the police to take action and locate him as well as punish the people responsible." Here, the officer smiled wryly as he added, "You won't be surprised to learn that not an awful lot was done to further her plight."

Bella sighed, feeling a slight pang of compassion for the poor mother in search of her child. "But she did manage to find out who he was in the end," she stated, knowing their whole ordeal wouldn't have happened if poor Mrs. Cope had been none the wiser.

"She befriended a private detective—he's actually the person who came forward with most of the information we have on the woman. He was willing to do some digging into her case in exchange for her…oh, um," he paused uncomfortably looking at Bella, " _services_." Blushing, the police officer avoided Bella's gaze as he went on. "He managed to find out Michael's name and from there, it was easy to make the connection to Broadway."

"But not in time for her to meet her son." Bella felt so sad, knowing Mike, who'd always felt so alone and left out, had a mother out there somewhere who was looking for him but who, in turn, wouldn't find him until it was too late and despair had driven her son to take his own life.

"By the time she came to New York, the case had already been closed and all that was left was a cheap grave marker in Woodlawn Cemetery and a stagehand who told her what little he knew about her son's final days. That was probably how she got the idea," he concluded. "We know very little about what happened afterwards but we hope that Mrs. Platt can shed some light on how Mrs. Cope managed to enter into Mr. Cullen's employment, if she recovers."

The young officer left them with that; a stunned silence lingering long after his departure.

It was Edward who, in the end, was the one who spoke first. "I know it may sound strange and completely inappropriate given the way that woman almost succeeded in killing us, but…in a way, I almost feel like we deserved her wrath."

"How so?" Bella frowned, her mind still too full with the revelations that had just been shared and the pieces of the confounding puzzle slowly sliding into place.

"What we did to Mike…" Edward sighed, utterly ashamed of the callous, cruel way his younger self had acted towards a person who had been in need of his compassion and friendship. "What we did to him was monstrous. So it's not entirely without logic that through our cruel acts, we created a monster."

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 _ **Thoughts?**_


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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 _ **LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.**_

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 _ **Belmont Island, Maine**_

 _ **Friday, March 16, 1961**_

 _ **3 PM**_

It was exactly ten years later that a familiar group gathered on the dock at Rosslyn Harbor.

This time, however, the air between the four adults was much lighter and, in stark contrast to the pile of high-end suitcases that had littered the dock the last time, neither guest had brought any luggage, a fact the boatman could definitely appreciate.

Though eager to pay their final respects to the man and woman who had brought about so many changes in their lives, none of them wanted to remain on the island for a minute longer than absolutely necessary.

As Belmont Island loomed up in the distance, the four survivors of that weekend of horrors stared at it while a little further down the very welcome sound of two children playing noisily with a ball offered a welcome distraction from their feelings of unease.

"Even after all these years, this place still gives me the creeps!" Rose muttered, stubbing out a cigarette as she slowly exhaled the smoke.

She'd changed over the past ten years. In fact, one could definitely say that she'd come into a second bloom after having been freed from the shackles of her unhappy marriage. Her figure was back to its former hourglass shape but the biggest change was in the way she carried herself. Her face no longer bore that hard, unhappy look and, though her posture was still confident, it no longer held that aggressive stance it carried ten years ago.

"What? The famous Hollywood scream queen is scared of ghosts?" Jasper chuckled, pushing his hat a little further back on his head as he shrugged. "I'd rather not be here myself, either, but well…what can you do about it?"

"Here they come," Rose announced, her attention distracted from the faint image of the castle looming up in the distance as a luxury car rolled to a stop close to them.

They both smiled, inching forward as the two missing members of their party made their appearance. They might not have all become close friends after surviving their ordeal, but the years that lay between then and present day had been nothing like the ten that passed before them. There had been cards, occasional letters and the odd visit whenever one of them was in the neighborhood.

Their shared history had linked their lives together in a way no amount of time and healing could break. Though each and every one of them had found his or her own way to cope with the gruesome scenes they'd witnessed, it was only in those whose eyes had seen it too that they found true understanding of the scars that weekend had left behind.

There was always a strange atmosphere hanging over those gatherings, though. Like the ghosts of the many deaths they'd seen together still hung over them. None of them ever spoke about it, but still, it might have been one of the reasons why they had never sought a closer bond than that of mere acquaintances.

Well, except for Bella and Edward, of course.

Out of all the parts he had played in his life, the role of husband and father was the one that suited Edward best. After he had been skillfully nursed back to health by Bella's loving hands, aided by the somewhat clumsy but always heartfelt efforts of her son, he'd returned to Hollywood to serve out the remainder of his studio contract and sever all ties with the world he had come to loathe.

Funny enough, the person he sold his house to was someone he had come to know quite well. After their ordeal at Belmont, Rosalie Hale had wasted no time to turn her life around. Like Edward, she'd refused to stay in a place that had been linked to so many unhappy memories. And so as soon as she'd given Emmett a decent funeral and shed the extra pounds her unhappiness had put on her, she'd moved to the place she'd always dreamed of ending up.

Hollywood.

Edward, happily on his way out of the life she was embarking on, had helped her find her footing around town. He'd pointed out the hotspots and introduced her to all of the acquaintances and studio connections that could help her get her foot in the door.

It didn't take long for her career to take off, like it should have done all those years before. After all, Rose was still a stunning woman and one hell of an actress. She soon made a name for herself as Hollywood's perfect damsel in distress; a name that landed her the main role in almost every big horror production that was made.

Fate, it seemed, was not completely without irony.

Hollywood life suited her to a T and it showed in every movie and picture Edward and Bella caught seen.

At long last, Edward and Bella were married on the 16th of March 1952; exactly one year after they met at the dock in Rosslyn Harbor, and a week after Edward had been freed from his Hollywood ties. It was a small affair with only a few trusted friends and family members and one very happy boy in attendance.

Life away from the limelight suited Edward. A chance attendance at a board meeting for Black Industries revealed that he had a real knack for business and an understanding of the market. A permanent seat on the board had soon followed as Bella—who had only ever forced an interest in the business of Black Enterprises because she needed to look after her son's inheritance—started to phase out of her late husband's affairs.

Her free time was devoted to charity—and to the two new additions to their family.

Michael Carlisle Masen had been born two years after their escape from Belmont, and his little sister, Angela Esme, following two years after him. As they grew, Edward and Bella did their best to instill into them all the good traits they had encountered in their namesakes and warn them away from any flaws that might have clung to those names. They were left now, along with their big brother, in their mansion outside of Seattle, Washington.

Safe and none the wiser about their parents' frightening past.

Edward and Bella had both known the day would come when they would have to return to Belmont. As hard as they'd worked to put it behind them, it was a book that still had its final chapter missing. That day, as their car slowly but steadily drove towards the two waiting figures on the dock, they knew they were going to write the epilogue to what had been the most haunting chapters of their lives.

And even though there was preciously little to draw them back, the unwritten ending wasn't the only thing that brought them to Rosslyn Harbor that day.

They had a task to complete.

"I wonder if their souls will be at rest now," Bella muttered, staring out the window into the dreary, foggy morning.

Edward shrugged, his eyes briefly traveling to the black marble urn resting at his feet before following his wife's gaze. He'd never really believed in ghost stories or anything else pertaining to an afterlife. "It's what they both would have wanted."

As soon as they exited the car, they were reunited with the only two people who knew exactly how they were feeling.

"Edward!" Jasper was all broad smiles as he patted the other man on the shoulder. "It's good to see you again!"

Edward smiled back as he returned the gesture. "Jasper. Still haunting the Broadway stages?"

"You know what they say," Jasper countered. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Though nowadays I'm more for the shadows than the light." He chuckled at the confused faces around him. "I decided to follow into Carlisle's footsteps; I'm a director now." Chuckling again, Jasper nervously scratched the back of his head. "It was my wife's idea, actually."

"You're married?" Bella's and Rosalie's eyes couldn't have grown bigger if they tried.

"Congrats!" Edward was the first to recover from the shock of seeing the once so ascetic actor give up his solitary existence. "Finally found one mad enough to put up with you, huh?"

Jasper snickered. "I merely took your advice."

"And how is life in Hollywood for you, Rose?" Bella asked as the men engaged in an abundance of 'old married man' talk.

"It suits me much better than my previous life," Rose replied, "though I have to admit, it can be lonely at times. Edward sure was right about that."

"You could always follow Jasper's suit," Bella offered.

Rose shook her head. "No, married life is not for me. You know what they say: one bitten, twice shy." She sighed, her face hardening as the boatman stalked past them on his way to the boat. "Let's get this show on the road. The sooner we get there, the faster we can get the hell away from this place."

"My sentiments exactly." Bella pursed her lips, never letting go of Edward's hand as he helped her aboard.

Their journey towards the island was quiet; each and every one of them battling the ghosts of their pasts as slowly but surely the familiar shape of Belmont castle came into view. When the boat finally docked at the jetty on which Edward had nearly lost his life, his hands were shaking and his palms sweaty as he tried to pull himself together.

Reminding himself that he had a job to do was the only thing that made him move, offering his sweet wife assistance as she disembarked.

"This is it, then," she muttered, her hand squeezing his as they slowly progressed towards the castle in a solemn procession. Keeping her eyes firmly trained on the front door and not on the spot where they'd found her husband more alive than dead, barely, she too tried to focus on why they had returned that day.

Esme had never really recovered from the poison that had been meant to kill her. In time, she'd recovered enough to take the steps necessary to officially divorce her husband and claim the inheritance Carlisle had left her.

She never returned to it, though.

Neither would she ever leave its sight, even though all four of her fellow-survivors had offered her their homes at one point.

Using some of the money he'd left her with, Esme bought a nice little house in the harbor. On clear days, the view out onto the bay allowed her to see the place where she'd been both so very happy and intensely sad at the same time. Would she have been content knowing that she'd given it new purpose or would she have mourned the loss of her former life?

They would never know.

What they did know, though, was that since the last time they'd stood on its soil, Belmont Island had been completely transformed. On the outside, the house was still the same, imposing castle it had been back in the day and on the inside it still held all the ornate fixtures and fittings of old. But its current use as an artist's retreat had made the place come alive.

It was quite shock to its four guests, who had known it only as a bleak, desolate and haunting place.

The head of staff knew of their arrival and, whether or not she had told the other people inhabiting the island, the four of them were left alone as they rounded the castle and came upon the terrace; that same place that had played such a role in their lives.

"Do you have it... _them_?" Jasper fumbled. His lips pressed into a thin, anxious line as he looked at Edward.

No matter how much it had been transformed, none of them wanted to linger on the island for longer than absolutely necessary.

After all, it had taken them many years to even get that far.

Edward nodded, producing the huge urn that held the remains of the two people who had brought the four of them together again and had shaped their futures.

It had been Esme's dying wish. In her lifetime, she had never dared to go back to the island but in death, she wanted to be reunited with the love of her life.

Reunited and scattered together on the cliffs of Belmont.

"Does anyone feel the need to speak?" Rose asked as Edward unscrewed the lid of the urn holding the two reunited ashes.

It was Jasper who was the only one able to speak as his friend scatted the ashes onto the cliffs. "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part. And mine a sad one."

With that very fitting quote from the play that had cemented all their individual life stories together, Edward scattered the ashes; the wind picking up the dust that once was their beloved director and his cherished wife and fanning it out like a curtain closing on a final performance.

It was the end of two lives as well as the end of their own tales of woe.

The procession leading back to the jetty was every bit as solemn as the one in which they'd came, but if one had taken a good look at the four people walking together, one would have noticed that each one walked a little lighter…like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

And to those who knew them, it made perfect sense.

Lifted were the ties that bound them to the past. Ahead of them lay a boat that would take them back to dry land…

To their futures.

THE END

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 _ **As we reach the end of this story I would like to thank my fabulous beta, LadySharkey1, from the bottom of my heart for being there for me throughout this one and, of course, all of you for giving this one a shot and sticking with me throughout my killing spree. I'm very excited to announce that I will start posting my new story, 'The Reaper', next week. It's another period mystery piece but with less murders.**_

 _ **As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.**_


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